Stakes and Fenceposts
by Endless-Helix
Summary: A Buffyverse Xover with Smallville, Chloe and Lois attempt to take Clark on a clubbing tour to forget about Lana, but they run into the infinite minions of the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart as they begin the battle against Angel and his allies. Coincidence?
1. Chapter 1

Stakes and Fence posts: Smallviille/Buffyverse

This is my first Fic, so please, R&R!

**Spoiler Warning!**

Set just after Lana gets wiped by Brainiac and just after the Last episode of the TV show version of Angel. Slightly AU, basically so I can do whatever I want without dealing with Cannon, and with little bits of stuff added in around Clark's powers primarily and Lana's condition.

**Disclaimer**: I have no ownership over anything in this story that you recognize. But I fervently wish I did.

**Chapter 1**: In which Clark beats the living crap out of stuff.

"Chloe, you do realize that shopping for shoes generally isn't a way that guys deal with grief," Clark muttered to his friend. She merely grinned, "At least you're complaining now. You're still a wreck, but now you can have emotional reactions to things that don't involve the initials L.L."

"Plus, you would look so good in this season's Gucci platforms," Lois basked in the farm boy's glare. She kicked a crushed soda can down the street. When she looked in the store window at a very large rifle, Clark picked up the can and tossed it in the garbage at super-speed. Lois was too busy salivating about the .44 Caliber bolt-action hunting rifle. Clark couldn't help but wonder what use that would be in a city.

"Boy scout," Chloe mouthed. She decided that coming to L.A. was probably a smart move. The intrepid reporter had sweet-talked Ollie into providing a week-end in L.A. for Clark, just after Lana Lang had been put in a coma by Brainiac. 'It'll be good for Clark to get away. Get a new perspective,' she'd said. Ollie had caved surprisingly easily. In fact, he'd only put up token resistance, which upon rumination, made Chloe a little suspicious.

"Why are we out this late again?" Clark grumbled. He liked his beauty sleep, and he was more of a diurnal creature, than a nocturnal. "Because we are going to go clubbing and get you out of your funk, possibly by getting you drunk," Lois laughed. The huge farm boy actually looked more depressed.

They turned a corner to look at a bunch of smaller shops, which by now were for the most part closed for the night. The huge graffitied metal barriers were pulled over shop windows. The really funny thing about this street was how about million... creatures were marching into an alleyway. Some only came up to Chloe's waist, others towered even over Clark, and yet others flew, spewing fire.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I wanna slay the Dragon," A voice drifted out from the alley.

"What the fuck?" Lois gaped at the insanity. The legion of... things was poring out of a rent in the air. The city behind the opening seemed to ripple in a very disturbing way, like it was painted on the wind.

"Someone's in that alley, Clark!" Both Chloe and the big blue boy scout seemed a little too calm for the situation. It wasn't like they'd had military training, a la Sam Lane, the General.

"Maybe it's for a movie, or an ad, or something," Clark tried to convince himself, but failed miserably. The creature's skeletons, when they had them, were not human. The assorted medieval weapons looked surprisingly realistic and sharp for a movie set. Also, a bunch broke off from the main group to attack Clark, Chloe, and Lois.

"Chloe, Clark, RUN!" Lois yelled, she picked up a garbage can lid like it might do something. That was when she got an axe in her gut. It went right through the lid and got an inch into her stomach, before Clark's hand caught the haft.

"ANGEL, there are... out..." Filtered over the din in the alley.

"Clark?" Lois whimpered, "I told you to run," Blood ran down her legs in long spidery rivulets. She started laughing weakly.

"She's going into shock, Chloe, get her help! NOW!" Clark yelled. The ground actually shook with his yell. A sword shattered against his back. He spun around, a blur, and sent the stupefied creature flying with a back fist it couldn't even see. When the beast hit the building, it dripped down.

Chloe pulled her cousin around the corner, and started to call 911. Then she realized that an ambulance would never get there in time. She knew what she had to do. _Go, Go, Gadget, healing power!_ Chloe the meteor freak thought. Then she blacked out as she took the wound unto herself.

--

Charles Gunn was seriously reconsidering the whole 'Blaze of Glory' plan. Of late, he'd kinda hoped to die in a large clean bed of old age, surrounded by his great-great-grandkids. He was wounded pretty bad, and the blood loss was making him loopy. Charles knew deep down that this was the right plan of action. But he was still seeing the advantages of a long, non-violent life.

"Chloe, Clark, RUN!" echoed down the alley. A young girl's voice, maybe eighteen or nineteen. If Charles had any extra blood it would have drained from his face.

"Oh my God, there are norms... ANGEL, there are norms out there!" Gunn chopped a gribbly in three. He was swarmed, but the Vampires looked like they were having a ball, Spike in particular. In so far as he could tell with Allyria, she seemed to be happy dicing the monsters. It looked like Angel had heard and was fighting his way to whoever yelled.

"She's going into shock, Chloe, get her help! NOW!" The ground shook with the last syllable. Gunn lost his footing, and accidently sliced the feet off a larger beastie. He heard a splat, and a nasty organic sound, possibly a moan.

Then things got freaky. Charles had just hobbled to a standing position, when a thunderclap knocked him back down again. He saw some the the smaller beasts actually sent flying, just before they burst into flames. Huge swaths of enemies were suddenly just bits, flying through the air, on fire.

When all the enemies in front of the vampires, Allyria, and Charles, were down, they just stood and watched. Their enemies were being vaporized. Some were incinerated, others were being tossed about like rag dolls, necks broken, some even exploded, others just splattered. The thing was, it was all happening simultaneously with no-one there to cause it.

"Magic?" Spike asked, speaking for pretty much everyone.

"No. There's sort of a.. blur that I think is causing it. It's hard to tell," Allyria whispered.

"Is it on our side?" Angel asked.

"I hope so," Spike said, "Because if it isn't, I have no bloody fucking clue how to stop it, Peaches,"


	2. Chapter 2 In which there is much lying

doodie8806: Thanks for the encouragement! I'm a Clois fan myself, but I'm not sure that this story will end up being that way. Lois will be kinda pissed off...

Chapter 2

Clark was lost in a frenzy of exploding statues, thousands of them. 10,753 of them to be exact; Clark had counted as he burned them in huge swaths, decapitated them, pulled them apart, and smashed them for variety, but he wasn't in a mood to care right now. All that mattered was making sure that Chloe and Lois could get away. Then it was over, burning corpses piled nearly 10 feet high in some places. All that was left was to close the rift in the air. He walked over quite calmly, took both sides, and squeezed them shut. The portal closed on his thumb. Clark yelped, yanked his finger out and squeezed the last bit of the portal shut as he sucked on his thumb. Surprisingly, that had hurt a little.

"Uh... Hi!" A tallish man waved from the corner. He had brown hair that looked really like really bad bed head and had a deathly pallor. This guy had a massive sword that he was holding in one hand on his be-trench-coated shoulder. There was a shorter guy with gelled, bleach blonde hair and an equally pale coloration as the taller guy next to him; he had a shocked, but wary look. A woman with bluish skin and weird eyes was holding a large axe, and looking somewhat awkwardly at her feet. There was also a rather normal looking black guy, who, while tall, was wounded, and was using his massive axe like a cane.

"Hi," Clark gave a lopsided grin. He walked through the burning pieces of the creatures to where his friends had run off to. The farm boy was literally covered in fluids that could any number of things,probably from bodies. He was pretty sure the black stuff was tar, from the now bubblin asphalt, but he wasn't sure.

"Um... Thanks for, well, I guess it would be... saving us?" The black guy seemed uncertain what exactly he should be thanking Clark for.

"Sure. Glad to help out with the... murdering... These things were the bad guys, right?" Clark got a sinking feeling in his gut. If those were good, he didn't know what he'd do.

"Why exactly would we say 'no'? But yes, these were the 'black hats'," The tallish guy said, "I'm Angel," He held out his hand.

Clark zipped over and shook Angel's hand, "The short Billy Idol wannabe is Spike, the woman is Allyria, and Gunn's the one with the axe and the leg wound."

"Look, it's really lovely meet you all, but I need to find my friends. One of them got an axe to the stomach, and they aren't exactly invulnerable," Clark said, "And by the way, I'm Clark."

"No, yeah, I understand, it's just... Can we come with you? We... Well, this was kinda supposed to be a, uh, suicide mission, so we don't exactly have a place to go..." Angel gave a nervous look to the side.

Clark didn't have time for this, "Fine. Whatever. Just don't tell anyone about what happened. You can take the credit, just help me find my friends,"

"They're over behind that building," Allyria muttered, pointing, eyes at her feet, "I saw them crawl over there during the fight, sir,"

"Uh, thanks," Clark was a little confused, so he did an X-ray, and he saw Lois's skeleton kneeling at Chloe's skeleton's side. Chloe's wasn't moving, "All right, come with me. We've got a ridiculously large suite at some fancy hotel. Lois knows where it is. She'll be the one who's kneeling. Chloe is the one who'll be in a healing coma."

The group looked at Clark, and nodded. They were figuring him for a demigod or something. Until he flagged a taxi. Then they were just confused, cause demigods and annoying taxi drivers didn't mix. Plus, they really had to squeeze in and weapons made that awkward.

--

Lois Lane paced around the elaborate room, full of ancient pottery, rare paintings, and more importantly, Clark Kent, attempting to give her a full explanation, without actually explaining anything. She was used to it from Clark. His first reflex when encountering weirdness was to obfuscate it. Lois wanted answers, and she wasn't taking 'no' for one of them.

"Lets go over this again, We turn a corner, see a legion of evil gobbie- things. Some come after us, hit me with some sort of hammer, Chloe gets a cut from some weapon, and you stay behind to act the hero. Somehow, you survive without a scratch on you, and yet, Chloe is non-responsive and _without a pulse_. You aren't wiggling away from this one, Clark," Lois' eyes gleamed, "I've got you from a dozen different angles."

Clark paused, and thought, trying to find a plausible lie.

"Look, remember the first time you met me? How you said you 'have no idea you survive this town, Smallville' ?" He started. Lois nodded. It was just after the weird metal man came around and tried to kill Chloe.

"Well, I survived, mostly by luck at first, but eventually, I got really good at fighting. I mean, I was fighting things that had six to eight times the strength of a normal human, plus lightning reflexes. I got by, primarily because I can absorb a lot of damage before I go down, but also because I fought with science.

"If a guy can play with magnetism, you use it against him. If he's really fast, lure him into a tar pit, if he's invisible, cover him in paint. Strategy. But I've got a lot experience under my belt fighting things that aren't exactly human. The creepiest was probably that Kelvin kid, who's M.O. was to suck the heat out of people and things. I pushed him in a lake.

"The point is I'm a better fighter than you ever give me credit for. That's how I survived till those guys finished up," Clark smiled, Lois rolled her eyes. "Let's spar sometime. Maybe I can show you a couple of tricks," Clark's grin widened. Lois just laughed, "Yeah, whatever Kent, nice speech , but that doesn't expla-"

"Oy! Boy Scout! Ally says that blonde chickee is up," Spike walked in, "Thought you might want to know."

Lois was out of the door, leaving Spike and Clark alone. Clark motioned for Spike to follow, and he tailed Lois at a respectable distance, through the door to the baroque room that Chloe was staying in, to see Lois hugging her cousin.

"Chloe, you have got a ton of explaining to do. Clark was trying to distract me with tales of his glory days," Lois laughed at that image, "Hammers don't exactly just leave bruises."

"Clark, maybe we should just tell her..." Chloe started.

"Just remember, some secrets aren't ours to tell, Lois," Clark interjected, giving Chloe a look. She nodded, and he relaxed.

"Well, the suspense is killing me. Enlighten me."

"Lois, I'm a Meteor Freak," Chloe stated flatly, "I can heal, but I get the effects of the wounds. I guess shock from blood loss takes an hour or so to get over. I actually brought you back from the edge once. I was in a coma for about 7 hours."

"Is Clark a Meteor Freak too? Is he invulnerable? More importantly, is he going to go all psycho on us?" Lois asked sarcastically.

"I hope not," Chloe said earnestly, " But Clark is a normal boy, as far as I'm concerned, but more importantly, most Meteor Freaks don't go psycho. They take on personality traits from their powers, and on top of that, teenagers are really easy to crack when they get a lot of power at once. Like half the town is 'meteor-enhanced', Lois. No-one cares about the mechanic who wants to fix machines, and can talk to them, or the nurse who's touch can take away pain, or an old blind lady who can see the future. Or a hermit who can convince anyone of anything with a handshake. "

"Most Meteor Freaks are just normal people, Lois," Chloe grinned. Lois was a little suspicious, to say the least. Clark had a secret, but didn't want to share, and Chloe was running interference. Lois Lane knew she was being lied to, but didn't have any proof of it. Oh, Chloe had a reasonable explanation, it just rankled because of the look Clark gave her before it. It was saying 'Don't tell her my secret,' and Chloe had agreed. It meant that Lois Lane and Chloe Sullivan were on opposite sides for this fight, and that made Lois depressed.

"Spike, these windows are that necro-glass stuff. What's going on here?" Angel burst into the bedroom. He'd ditched the trench-coat.

"Angel, lets talk outside," Clark said, and pulled the vampire into the living area, "Now what's up the glass?"

"It's magically treated to prevent sunlight from causing me to burn up. Like a cinder," Angel said, "Look, you may find this hard to believe, but I'm a vampire,"

Clark nodded, "Spike too, right?"

"Err... Yeah. You knew?"

"I can hear people's heartbeat, and you don't have one. Also your lungs aren't doing anything. I can hear that too. I knew you were dead, but I didn't know you were a vampire," Clark grinned disarmingly, "So the sunlight thing is true? How about the fire thing? Stake through the heart?"

"Yeah to all of those, and decapitation," Angel's magnificent brow rumpled, "That's all common knowledge, so-"

"Long story. My girlfriend was a vampire temporarily, sunlight just made her hiss. What's more important is why the windows are fitted out with this tricked out glass," Clark looked quizzically at the glass, and held his hand out to them, "Huh."

"What?" Angel said, exasperated.

"It means that a friend of mine has a lot to explain," the alien flipped open his cell phone and dialed Oliver Queen's work phone.


	3. Chapter 3 In which Oliver Queen arrives

ben10987654321: Thanks! I completely missed that when I was editing this... I need to learn how to edit.

MysticWolf1: Thank you for the encouragement! I was saddened by the lack of good Angel/Smallville crossovers. I could only find one that I like, and that was out of the five stories online here. Allyria/ Illyria. I have gone back and fixed that. Also on Clark's acquiescence to Chloe and Lois' demands, Lana's comatose state has been going on for probably about two or three months. I'll explain with Oliver's arrival in Chapter 4. I've got plans for Illyria to start actually taking a part in this fiction, as well as Gunn.

JamesTKent: I really appreciate the good review! Originally the necro-glass was kind of a cop out to explain why Angel and Spike didn't just combust, but I figured I could run with it. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with Lois. She's one of the characters I don't have as good a handle on. This was a suicide mission because it was the Last TV season of Angel, and the last plot arc was basically Angel and Co planning to go hog wild, and take as many of the 'black-hats' as possible with them before they died. At least that was my understanding of what happened. I haven't really read Season 6, because I firmly believe that Jos Whedon should stick to directing TV shows. On Chloe, I think she learned her lesson last time she tried to bring back someone...

Tony-El: Longer chapters will be forthcoming!

**Chapter 3**

Oliver Queen sat in an expensive chair, at an expensive table, surrounded by expensive people who all wanted more money. There were many times that Ollie wished he could just let this part of his life go. Right now, he had no doubt that there were a dozen crimes happening that he could prevent, and that made him feel like he was wasting time with these yo-yo's. In fact, of those crimes he could stop, half of them could probably traced to one or two of the people in this room.

Thankfully, his phone rang.

"Look, I've got to take this, how about you deal with Mr. Clemmens here? This call means I need to be back in Metropolis. Bye!" Ollie gently pushed one of his aids into his chair, and walked out of the room. A sigh of relief came unbidden, and Ollie picked up his cell phone, "Hello?"

"Hey Ollie,"

"Clark! You saved me from a terrible board meeting. The trustees wanted a pay raise. How're you enjoying L.A.?" Ollie was delighted.

"It's great, except for the hordes of supernatural horror pouring out of a crack in reality."

Ollie laughed, until he realized that Clark was serious, "You're joking, right?"

"No. I was wondering why exactly the windows in my big, well furnished suite are made out of necromantically treated glass. I'm kinda of wondering why exactly you agreed to pay for this little excursion. I'm also wondering why you didn't tell me that something was going on."

"Because I didn't know that anything big was going on. A source of mine said that there was a chance something in L.A. might crop up, but it was a long shot. I figured that you and Chloe could deal with whatever was going down. I really can't explain the rest of it now, " Ollie explained, sort of.

"You are a really bad liar, you know that, right?" There was an amused quirk in Clark's voice over the phone, "This is an insecure line, right?"

"Right," Ollie said, relieved.

"Okay, how quickly can you get to L.A?"

"I'm already there. I'll get to your suite. See ya," Ollie hung up.

--

"Love, this may be a difficult question, but what exactly is up your boy scout friend?" The blonde vampire said. His name was Spike or William. He had a Ramones tank-top on, a black one, of course, and was in the process of lighting a cigarette. Chloe glared at him.

"What, do you want one?" He said, proffering the rumpled cardboard box he kept his stash in.

"Some of us have functioning lungs," Chloe quipped, "And would like to keep them that way."

Spike rolled his eyes and kept on smoking. The funny thing was, this guy was nervous. His hand was shaking a little. Smoking must be a nervous habit for him, to try to calm himself down.

"Why exactly are you so curious?" Chloe asked when Spike wasn't distracted.

"How about we start with the fact that Mr.'Don't-look-at-me-I'm-just-a-Kansas-Farm-boy' smote around ten thousand baddies in under 2 minutes, with his bare hands. They didn't even have time to scream before they were incinerated, or pulverized," Spike gave her a look a pure terror, "He's not human, is he?"

"Yes, he is," Chloe's mouth quirked upwards into a slight grin, "For a given amount of human."

The problem with being friends with Clark, Chloe mused, was that he wasn't really human. Oh, he could act like one, he could even lie surprisingly well when it occurred to him that he really needed to (In fact, Clark was the best liar she knew, way better than Lex). But his alien-ness showed through, in ways that were very surprising once you knew the secret. For instance, he nearly failed the one Art class he took in high school because his compositional sense was completely different. He kept doing these things involving distorted octagonal compositions.

"I don't need a bloody fortune cookie, bit," The vampire looked tiredly at the cigarette in his fingers, "Just give me some fuckin' answers. There were corpses piled up taller than dear old Clarkie-boy."

"You do know he can hear us, right?" Chloe asked curiously.

"I know, I just don't care. I'm a fighter. It's what I do. I got my name for torturing people with railroad spikes, back when I was soulless, you know, so you guess what kind of bastard I was," Spike said, "And the first thing I thought when I saw what Clark could do, was 'I'm obsolete'."

"Uh... Okay?" Chloe was confused.

"I mean, I've killed a lot of people, and even more things that weren't people, but bloody hell, you can't fight him," Spike was staring at the wall, "You'd be dead before you could think to move."

"Is there a point to this? Besides, Clark is a good person, he's just very protective," Chloe stated.

"Does 'very protective' cover stomping armies, pet?" There was a whoosh in the room, blowing the covers around a little.

"Yes, it does Spike," Clark smiled, "The explanation is outside, I'm telling everyone, except Lois," his voice dropped a little. Chloe heard the sadness in his voice, "She's out getting a drink; she and I kinda had a fight. Plus she wants to avoid Ollie coming over."

Spike looked at him with obvious fear, and darted out of the room, even depositing his finished cigarette in the ash tray.

--

Lionel Luthor smiled as he took in this year's profit margin. Luthorcorp was doing well. Lex was becoming quite the businessman, he was ruthless, elegant, and duplicitous. Lionel was was so proud of him. Lex had bankrupted a multinational aid program to secure a lucrative, exclusive contract for Luthorcorp. All without leaving any trail that he did so. It was a bold and decisive move, plus it gave the stock a four point rise.

"Lex, have you seen these numbers?" Lionel smiled as his son walked into his office, wearing his customary purple suit. His mouth grinned at Lionel's complement.

"Yes, I have. A four point rise from yesterday," The bald man raised his eyebrows.

"And likely to rise higher when the contract officially goes through," Lionel laughed, "Good work son. I'm proud of you!"

"Thank you, Dad, it means so much to me to hear you say that." Lex walked over to his father's desk and picked some papers, "What exactly are these?"

"I don't know, I can't see," Lionel harrumphed, getting a little nervous. His son slowly turned the paper he was looking at. Lionel's eyes widened as he stared at Kryptonian symbols he'd scrawled.

"Well, Dad?"

"I found them in the Kawatchi Caves in Smallville, I've bee trying to figure out what they mean for years now," Lionel Luthor lied mechanically. Sweat formed on his brow.

"And you couldn't figure it out?" Lex smiled his impassive smile, "I can't believe that. Dad, are you losing your touch?"

Lionel was getting increasingly nervous. This meeting was becoming decidedly disturbing. Lex's sarcasm had an edge he'd never heard in his son's voice before. Nothing good was going to happen here today.

"Son? What's going on?"

"Well, you see, I've come to you today about a worker who's not producing," Lex pulled a pistol out of his jacket, "Don't bother with the phones or the several panic buttons you've got squirreled away on you desk and in your jewelry. I've disconnected them," He pulled a ceramic silencer out of his pants pocket, "It's become quite clear to me that you no longer have your edge.

"You didn't even notice when I bought the board of directors right out from under you," Lex looked concerned, "You're slipping, Dad," His gloved hands finished screwing in the silencer to his matte black pistol, "And yes this is your pistol, the one you keep in your desk and you are so proud that you have a license for," Lex grinned as his father pawed through the desk trying to find a weapon, "Pride is a dangerous thing, Dad. But one thing will always be true," Lex smiled a real smile, " I am proud to be your son."

Two low cracks later, Lionel's brains had painted a mural on the high-rise window. Lex went into the vault and picked up all the boxes of symbols. He stuffed them in a black leather briefcase, just after putting the gun in his father's rapidly cooling hand. He left the room, and calmly walked outside. No-one stopped him. He smirked as he took a small remote detonator out of his sleeve and blew up Luthorcorp HQ.


	4. Chapter 4 In which Lois gets a bit drunk

Chapter 4

She paused as she closed the door. Part of her wanted to stay by the door and listen in, but she knew it wouldn't work. Clark was one of the most paranoid people she had ever met, including some of the politicians who were friends with her dad. He also had a preternatural way of finding anyone trying to eavesdrop.

Lois sighed as she walked down the stairs. Secrets bothered her; they always had. Sam Lane, her four-star general dad, always kept them, but he was honest about it. He'd tell you that he couldn't talk about the subject, and tell you that it was confidential. Lois understood that secrets could save lives.

The hotel bar was nice, but unfortunately empty; the beautifully upholstered booths were unused. Even the bar only had Lois, a lonely, overweight, female shipping manager, and the bartender, who while very cute, was also very, very gay. He even had the one earring, the effeminate gesticulations, and the slight lisp.

"Boyfriend trouble?" the flagrantly homosexual bartender said sympathetically.

"No," Lois glared into her Vodka Tonic, willing it to catch fire, "'Just friends' trouble. And it's all because of some stupid secret."

"Oo, I hate the 'just friends' speech," He lisped, his face grimaced in empathy. Lois knew that this was probably just as much for his sanity as it was for hers. The drunken shipping lady was babbling sadly into her massive girly drink about how she can't get any, and as fascinating as that promised to be, Lois knew that the Bartender had probably heard it all before. That lady had the look of a regular

"No, that's not the problem. It's a symptom of the real underlying problem. Clark just can't trust anyone, and since I'm starting to really care about him..." Lois grumpily gulped the as-of-yet not burning drink, "He's lost a lot of people to that secret, you know. His old best friend ran away to be a roadie because the kid couldn't deal, and his girlfriend is an coma. Clark even blames himself for Lana... I walked in one day when Clark was talking to my cousin."

Lois was starting to feel a little maudlin and weepy.

"Ollie!" The bartender looked up, and Lois looked over, only to see Oliver Queen, "I didn't know you were in town! How're you doing?"

"I'm fine Eddie, and yourself? How's Derek?" Ollie grinned, and Lois felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. She wasn't in the mood to deal with her ex. She hated the way she found out about Oliver Queen's hobby of vigilanteism, and it kind of colored their whole relationship. At first she could still be friends with him, but it kept clawing at her gut that she'd been strung along for his vanity. She'd actually heard that he was seeing someone else. Good luck to that poor broad.

"I'm not with Derek anymore," Eddie the bartender huffed, "I'm with Mikey now, and all I have to say is wow! What a fireball! How about you? Anyone new?"

"Yeah, but we're still sort of feeling each other out. We don't get to spend much time together, thanks to the line of work we're in," Ollie had a long-suffering smile on his face, "But, I'm still not sure I can make anoth- Lois?"

"Hello Mr.Queen," Lois smirked at Ollie's shocked expression, "Miss me? I didn't think you were that bad a shot."

"Lois don't be that way, why are you down here by yourself? I thought Clark wouldn't let you out of his sight," He had an incredulous look on his face, which then it changed slightly, as though he had just rethought something.

"I had a fight with Clark," Lois got off her stool unsteadily, "I needed to get out. Good bye Mr. Queen."

"Lois!"

Ollie watched Lois drunkenly swayed out of the bar. He still loved her, even after all the shit she'd dealt him after she found out about his being Green Arrow. She didn't like being lied to, but at least she kept his secret. Ironically, it wasn't the fact he was a vigilante that bothered her, it was only that he wasn't up front about it and that it cut into her alone time with him.

"You two... know each other?" Eddie looked on in confusion.

"Yeah, we used to date," Ollie said, "Business got in the way and now I'm paying for it. Give me a vodka shot, and charge it to Room 2309. Clark will murder me; I'd like to die at least a little fortified."

"Her not-boyfriend who is extremely protective of her and has a girlfriend in a coma? Secretive?"

"That's the one, except he's nowhere near as secretive as she makes him out to be," Ollie lied through his teeth, "She's just freaking out over a fight," Silently, he added _I hope._

--

Oliver stepped out of the elevator, and walked to the penthouse suite he'd rented for Clark and his friends. Before he was even within ten feet of the door, Clark opened the room and waved Ollie inside.

"How is Lana?" The worried alien blurted.

"No change. Even after all this time... It's been three months. We've got a fair amount of time before she becomes unlikely to wake up," Ollie quickly rattled off. He'd been expecting that one.

"We were just getting to the part of me doing the party trick," Clark grinned in relief, "I appreciate the save,"

"You're not getting out of it," Charles Gunn said, with a slightly shell-shocked smile.

"I never get tired of seeing it," Oliver confessed and Chloe just rolled her eyes, returning to the international news page of the Daily Planet. She'd seen it done quite a few times, and frankly, after the thirtieth time, it kinda lost it's previous pizzazz.

Clark pretended to pout, and asked for a stake. Angel handed him one. Then once Spike had convinced himself that it was, in fact, a wooden stake with no secret compartments, Clark burned it with his eyes, leaving a fine black ash. He then proceeded to crush this ash for about five minutes. Some fine vapor poured out of his hand as what little water left in the ash was evaporated.

He opened his hand and a small, oddly shaped diamond fell out on to the polished wood of the coffee table. It left scorch marks on the wood where it bounced. Spike's brand new, unlit cigarette fell out of his mouth before he could light it. Illyria didn't say anything. Gunn laughed in complete shock. Angel's eyebrows rose a quarter inch from their previously heightened position.

"Alright, I've had enough showing off for today," Clark looked more serious as he picked micro-diamonds out of the crevices of his hand, "Ollie, we'd like some answers. There's no way this is coincidence, and you didn't think of this yourself,"

"Yeah, who exactly told you to send Clark and I here to smash that Wolfram and Hart demon army and possibly to save the Breathless Brigade? Normally I would take this a little more in stride, but you involved Lois. And that is war." Chloe looked up from her paper. If glances could kill, this one would have committed genocide.

Oliver uncomfortably fished in his pockets till he found a slightly rumpled letter. It was in a pale pink envelope with a flowery word on the front.

"Which one of you is Angel? I've a letter for you," Ollie stalled, and then when the brown haired vampire raised his hand, he was handed the letter, "Then you must be Spike. I'm supposed to relay a hug by word of mouth to you from Buffy, Willow, and Dawnie, also a manly back slap from Xander,"

The punky bloodsucker chomped down on his still unlit cigarette and looked as embarrassedly angry as possible. When he thought no-one would notice, Spike wiped away the beginnings of a tear from his eye. Angel read his letter with a vengeance, carefully folding it up, putting it back in it's envelope, and placing it in the breast pocket of his trenchcoat, "She still cares... even after all this time..." He laughed weakly to himself, his eyes welling.

"Right, so I got a house call from one Slayer Prime of the Watcher's Council a couple of days ago. I'd never heard of them, but when I looked into it, they do a lot of the same work my... organization does, but with a slightly different focus. Basically, they handle the magical apocalypses that roll around," The de-costumed Green Arrow began.

"The Watcher's Council had gotten wind of some big disaster around L.A. and wanted our help with handling it, and The Slayer Prime's exact words were 'When there is a disaster, a Vampire named Angel will be in the thick of it with his friends, so please pull them out and make sure they get out in one or two pieces, preferably one,' however, since the main group was kinda swamped with the increase in 33.1 activity... Well, it was a lucky coincidence that Chloe wanted to get you out of Kansas. I kinda manipulated her into going to L.A., because who wants to go to Gotham to recover? That place is almost as whacked as Smallville. "

"Anyway, I discovered that this hotel had a suite for the sunlight sensitive, so I figured I'd stick Clark and company in it, then I'd let the dominoes fall into place."

"Did you follow all that?" Charles said, "Because I didn't."

"Basically, Buffy asked him to save us, and he sent operatives to do just that," Angel rolled his eyes.

"Ah."

"Wait a second, Buffy is the Slayer Prime?" Oliver gaped, "She's hot!"

--

Chloe sat on her bed and tried to figure out how to handle the Lois situation. Her cousin was feeling betrayed, out of the loop, and alone. It was pretty obvious that this situation had stirred up some feelings from when Lois had dated Oliver Queen, but on a larger scale. Now her best friend and a possible romantic figure, who Lois had trusted completely, was being glaringly secretive when she deserved answers.

The thing was, Lois did deserve answers, but the circumstances and her nature couldn't allow that to happen.

Sometimes Chloe really hated keeping Clark's secret. She hated even knowing that it existed. Once you find out that Clark is more than human, he stops being, well, a human. He becomes an idol, something out of reach. You stop being able to connect with him, or more accurately, feel like you have any meaningful link.

She tried to pretend that nothing ad changed, but it had. Frankly, Clark got super-powers. Maybe when she first found out, she could make it seem like nothing had happened, but once she started to see what Clark did, like, every week, without any askance for credit or gain, everything started to change. The truth was, the more you saw him help, the less human he became in your eyes. It was actually chilling to see how thoroughly he could pursue something, and when he cut loose, like with that underwhelmingly infinite demon army, you didn't want to be in the vicinity. It changed the way you looked at him.

Chloe did know that he needed a friend, but it was rapidly becoming obvious that the longer she was 'in the know', the higher she would put Clark above her. Eventually it could become damn near worship, and that scared her a little. Chloe didn't want Lois to become that way, and it was likely that she would have the same problem as Chloe did. When you thought about all the stuff he could do, and what he actually did... It really put him in a light most people couldn't even touch.

It inspired devotion.

"Cos, we've got a bit of talking to do..." Lois walked in.


	5. Chapter 5 In which the Villain is met

Chapter 5

"What do you mean you can't translate them?" Lex Luthor coldy snarled, "What else did I hire you for?"

The poor old man who was holding the pictograms shuddered and nearly had a hernia. He quickly adjusted his glasses trying to hide his attempts at catching his breath. Professor Gildenstern thumbed through the pile of note.

"Well, I'm a cryptologist, I study codes. These aren't a code for any language spoken today; I've graphed each paper a dozen different ways. You need a linguist. Probably specializing in Pre-Babylonian language," The professor mumbled.

Lex closed his lap top, and stared at the man who was defying him. Then he shook his bald head and rubbed his eyes with his palms, "No, see, I've already had several teams of linguists come in and look at these. They said I needed a symbologist. The team of symbologists I hired thought that these things were gibberish, and that perhaps they were a code of some sort. So here we get to you. You did say pre-Babylonian? Well, these were written about five weeks ago."

The old man didn't know what to say.

"You may go, I'll call if I have need of your services again," Lex got out of his chair and stared out the picture window of the Luthor estate library.

"B-but-"

"Good bye Dr. Gildenstern. I've got a company to run," Lex didn't look at the retreating figure of the old man.

--

Lois paced around the bed, her path wobbled a little bit, probably because of the drinks she had down in the bar. And yes, there were multiple drinks, Chloe mused. Lois Lane could never be accused of being a lightweight. She drank marines under the table who clocked in thirty pounds heavier than she ever would be.

"Chloe, you know Clark's secret," Lois stated, "Clark doesn't want me to know, even though we're friends. How bad is it?"

Chloe sighed. She couldn't let herself lie to her cousin anymore, "It's not bad at all. Clark has a good reason to keep it secret, but it's his secret to tell, not mine,"

"If it's not bad, why is he hiding?" Lois glared, "Is he a meteor-freak?"

"No. He's not a meteor freak," Chloe gave the best comforting smile she could.

"You're not lying?" Lois gave a hard look, or at least one that would have been hard if there wasn't so much alcohol in it.

"I'm not lying. There really isn't much reason for it now, in a logical sense, but there is an emotional one for Clark. You know that something is different about Clark, but he doesn't want to tell you what exactly is different, Lois. I gotta respect that," The blonde reporter sighed.

Her cousin made a face, but didn't say anything.

"Clark's my friend and you're my cousin, I don't want to be stuck in between you two," Chloe tried.

Lois was still silent.

Chloe looked down at her duvet, and frowned. She didn't know what would convince her cousin to drop the subject, if there even was a way to make her drop it. Lois Lane was synonymous with stubborn to a fault.

"Lois, knowing the secret, it doesn't make being a friend to Clark any easier. If anything, it makes it more difficult," Chloe sighed, "It's the kind of secret people will kill for."

Lois rubbed the bridge of her nose with some regret, "I'm in a state, aren't I?"

She tried to smile. She'd simply been hoping that information would make everything better between her and Clark. But by the sound of it, the secret wasn't something that would magically make everything hunky-dory. There was so much bullshit clogging everything up, it was hard to decide what was real and what wasn't.

The real problem was that it all reminded her of the situation between her and Ollie. Oh sure, she could draw the parallels, but she didn't really want to. Clark was a way better person than Oliver, and she couldn't believe that Clark Kent would want to hide something. Until last night, she would have said that Clark was the most normal boy she knew, except for his tendency to get involved in anything weird that came along, but she chalked that up to his over-developed sense of chivalry. Ollie did it because of some deep, screwed up pathos.

"You know, Clark tried to feed me some cock and bull story about how he made it on luck and skill; that's how I knew he was lying about something," Lois rolled her eyes, "Normal people, even with good luck and plenty of skill don't walk away from a fight without a bruise or something. Especially not when it's a friggin' war zone."

"Lois..."

"I thought about it, and I can't figure out why he didn't tell me. Will you at least tell me why he's hiding it?" her cousin pleaded, grabbing the blanket. Her eyes were desperate, "I can handle not knowing, if I know why I can't know."

Chloe gave a sad half-grin, and shook her head. Knowing Lois, she wouldn't stop. She couldn't. The thing was, Chloe had to limit the information or Lois could guess Clark's secret, and that wouldn't be good.

"Because it's not my secret to share, Lois. You'd have to ask Clark the why. I can guess, but I can't guarantee that what I say is true," Chloe said, "My guess is that he thinks you'd see him in an unflattering way, or that you would get pissed at him for keeping his secret from you, despite the fact that knowing this information means you are a target."

"So he thinks I need protecting; great," Lois muttered. She hated people looking down on her. Like she was a prize to be won, and couldn't take care of herself. Dammit! She was trained in three martial arts, had a third degree black belt in two of them. She could shoot a gun. Lois Lane saw herself as a superwoman, not some flighty little girl who needed an armed escort wherever she went.

"Lois, if you learn this secret, you do. "

--

Oliver's phone kicked into overdrive. He picked up, listened for a few minutes. Luthorcorp HQ had just been destroyed; Lionel Luthor was dead. People were unloading the stock left and right, figuring that it would be worthless in a few days.

Queen Industries had been trying to buy up the stock, to get an inside report on what's going on, but it had gotten gobbled up by Cadmus Labs and numerous other Luthorcorp subsidiaries. Lex Luthor had inherited controlling interest in Luthorcorp, and he was buying up all the stock outside his grasp. And the only way Lex could have completely gotten all of the stock with no interference, was to know what was going to happen.

"Hey guys, do you, uh, have any plans?"

Angel looked puzzled, "No."

Spike shook his head. Illyria just stared at Oliver. Charles Gunn said, "Nope,"

"Well, we could totally use your help. Clark, your buddy Lex just inherited Luthorcorp under some pretty crazy circumstances. I think we're all going to Metropolis."

-

A scaly, cthulnic hand reached out of the sulfurous pit, clawing it's way to the surface. What might have been a man's face at one point balefully glared at the world. Something wearing Lionel Luthor's face was smiling down at the thing. It was always good to see your children grow up.

"Caleb, I'm so glad you're feeling better," Lionel's mouth smirked.

"Found a new body you like?" The thing from the pit made a gurgling noise, possibly it was a laugh.

"Yes, the Slayer's look is so last season," The Lionel-figure grinned, primping it's long black coat. Caleb, the thing from the pit, clambered out with all nine of his limbs, patches of scales glittered on his twisted pitted skin. One of his limbs functioned as a tail with a huge mace on the end, another was like a giant scythe, yet another had fleshy suckers with barbs on them. His body didn't even look all that human, he had five shoulders with spikes growing out of them, his jaws were extended far beyond his face, and his eyes glowed with a malign intelligence.

"Who is that?" Caleb asked, "Is it some friend of the bitch's?"

"No, no," The Lionel-figure snorted, "The Slayer Prime, as she calls herself nowadays, is an inconsequential bug. She really doesn't matter, in the long run. She's mortal. It's just a waiting game."

Caleb's face twisted.

"Oh sure, she really screwed up my plans. I'm not denying that. But she will turn old and grey, or she'll catch a bullet in the brainpan, or something. Maybe she''ll even die at your hands..." The Lionel-figure gave a significant look to the abomination kneeling at it's feet. Caleb pulled his deformed face into what approximated a smile.

"I'd like that," His pointed teeth barely fit together.

"But we've got a hitch. There's someone out there who is far more of a problem, Caleb. I only know what this man knew about it at the time of his death. His son wasn't thoughtful enough to leave the man's brain intact. I know this problem's weakness, but I don't know it's name, or what it looks like," The Lionel's face turned into a frown, "This problem is immortal. I can't ignore it. I can't sense it. I need it dead, Caleb."

"I'll see to it, First," The beast bowed to the First Evil.


	6. Chapter 6 In which Angel broods

**A/N**: Thank you everyone for all the exceedingly fine reviews! I appreciate them immensely! It really motivates me to write more! Also, I'm sorry about the erratic posting schedule, but my life is kinda hectic right now. I'll probably be switching to a weekly posting date that will probably be one or two chapters at a time. But they should be a lot longer... Without further ado-

**Chapter 6**

Sometimes, knowing all the connections in the L.A. demon underground came in handy. In all honesty, Angel was still in shock about surviving the night, more than anything else. In fact, he could almost forget that Wesley died. Ah, well, 'almost' was the key word. But, on the up-side, he only needed to make two calls to get a hold of two limos with necromantically-treated, tinted, bullet-proof glass. The stay at Wolfram and Hart had it's advantages.

Illyria still had her axe, and seemed more pensive, rather than the usual barely contained scorn for all things human. Spike was smoking again; honestly, he'd gone through nearly two packs today. Gunn was idly pacing around, waiting for the transportation to arrive.

The other group, Clark, Lois, and the other one, who's name escaped him, fascinated Angel. Clark had an advanced case of heroism, mixed with his abilities... It was odd to see him so meek and even a little stupid. Angel would have thought that it would have made the boy arrogant, maybe even withdrawn, but Clark was desperate for personal connection. Perhaps Clark Kent was merely a smokescreen, but it was a damn convincing one.

Lois was exactly what you saw, a strong, stubborn tomboy, with a romantic side that she wore on her sleeve, despite trying desperately to hide it. She was pissed at Clark for keeping secrets, because she was starting to have a crush on him. Lois was trying to wheedle the information out of Clark, who joked with her and avoided her questions. Clearly, he wasn't trying to date her.

If what Angel heard about Clark's current girlfriend was right, Clark wouldn't let himself hook up with her for a long time, if ever. Besides, who wants to date a man who might accidently shatter your pelvis and your spine if he lost control for one stroke? Who might fry you with his eyes if his harmones jumped funny?

The other girl, Chloe was her name, Angel finally remembered, was basically trying to read the paper, while mouthing the correct responses to support Clark's side of the argument. Clearly this wasn't the first time this sort of argument had happened. Angel had a feeling that Chloe may have been playing Lois' part at one point.

"Bloody hell, does that bint ever shut up?" Spike muttered. Angel smiled as he brooded on the new people in his existence. Fortunately for everyone, Ollie arrived with the Limos.

--

"So, we're alive!" Charles said with a weird expression on his face. Halfway between smiling and a frown. He felt the leather seats of the limo creak as he leaned forward.

"Yes. We're alive-ish. Heading towards certain death," Spike grumbled. He was still smoking.

"Why does the super-human hide?" Illyria abruptly switched topics. Ironically, that topic was on everyone's mind, "It's not my place to question him, but I cannot help it."

"Why isn't it your place?" Angel asked curiously.

"He's more powerful than I am," Illyria stated, no emotion showing in her voice.

"Err... So?" Angel was still confused.

"You're still basically a human. You wouldn't understand a creature older than your entire race," The cloak of arrogance suited the Old One. Her kind had ruled the Earth long before humans were a cohesive nation. She'd had a hell of a time adjusting to the world as it was now.

"Just like you wouldn't understand a creature that evolved on an entirely different planet, Blue?" Spike joked. Illyria scowled. She hadn't let go of her axe since, well, she met who she'd only referred to as 'the Superhuman'. It finally occurred to Angel that she might be feeling a little insecure. Illyria had been so powerful that she needed to be restrained just to exist within this reality. Now she had just encountered something that was possibly equally powerful as she was then. Perhaps the old one was self-concious.

"I understand the hiding bit," Angel said after an awkward pause, "I think."

"So spill," Gunn motioned to the vampire to continue. He'd put his axe in the trunk, along with the rest of the heavier weapons. However, Charles was unique in that he put away all of the weapons he carried. Even Angel had two knives in his armpits, a stake at the small of his back, and a trench spike in his boot.

"My guess is that he wants to be a human. But he can't ever divorce what he is, so he creates a persona who is too normal to be an alien powerhouse that can tear apart a tank with his bare hands in a second and still have time to place every piece in alphabetical order," Angel navel-gazed, "He just wants to be normal; he must brood. He must."

Spike shook his head and lit another cigarette, "Nah. Why save people then? It gets too much attention. The kid is so bloody innocent it hurts. He must have a fucking huge savior complex to go with the powers. 'With great power...' and all that," The Billy Idol wannabe puffed angrily, "He's been guilt-tripped into it, probably by his parents. What happens when he cracks? That's what I want to know."

"That's stupid! He has all the power, how could he be coerced?" Illyria spat, "Anyone who stood against him would be destroyed. Even me."

"Threatening friends and family is one way; he's got a lot to lose there. Just like Spiderman," The bleach-blonce vampire suggested.

"Spike, did you just quote Stan Lee at me?" Angel grinned, "The thing is that Clark has a huge set of constraints set on him because of his power. He has to be morally superior to any human, or he would become a target... Oh man... " He trailed off as he brooded on what he just said.

"Uh... Not to be to much of a nerd, but did any of you read Miracleman?" Charles asked, "There's an example of a 'morally superior being' or whatever you called it. It ends up conquering the world and turning it into a Utopia... Of course, Clark does have a lot of odd hang-ups that Miracleman never had, like he feels guilty over killing people, but if they aren't too human-looking and they threaten his friends he'll kill without much hesitation. I'd hate to see what would happen if he lost a friend..."

"He has; look at what happened to his girlfriend, Lana, I think her name is, she's in a coma. I'm pretty sure he's lost people before. He hasn't tried to conquer the world, yet," Angel suggested.

The rest of the ride was in silence. The conversation was was played out. Clark would never try to conquer the world, would he?

--

"So they think they're vampires," Lois fumed. She was getting answers, sort of, but they didn't make much sense. In her mind, magic was a trick or crazy talk. Besides, Lois had heard of a couple of clubs in New York who catered to people with a blood fetish...

"No. They are vampires. You know, children of the night, dead, drink the blood of the living... all that jazz," Chloe explained, for the fourth time.

"Well two of them are, at least. The black guy is normal, and the lady is weird. She's about as strong as one of the vampires, without the same vulnerabilities, I think," Clark furrowed his brow. He didn't like the necro-glass windows this limo sported, just like the one ahead of it. It prevented him from charging up. He'd dipped a little into his reserves, and really wanted to replenish them.

"What? You two believe them?" The jaded daughter of a general's eyes widened, "You're both totally insane."

Clark and Chloe shared a look. Sometimes Lois Lane could be so damn dense it was unbelievable.

"Lois, you've seen real magic. I was there, too. Remember Beijing? Lana was possessed by a witch and..." From the murderous look Lois gave Clark, she didn't want to remember that bit, "- and she was throwing around some heavy duty spells. Also, I've run into something like a vampire before. Do you have a better explanation?"

"Yes! They're crazy! I don't know what happened in Beijing, but dammit, it wasn't magic. There's no such thing as magic!" Lois frowned. The hangover she was experiencing was not improving her mood. Maybe she shouldn't have drank quite so much last morning...

"She's not going to get it until it bites her in the ass," Chloe muttered. Clark smiled and rolled his eyes.

"You two shouldn't talk; you're both keeping secrets from me. Especially you Clark. I haven't forgiven you for that," There was a dangerous edge in Lois' voice.

A tense silence ruled the luxury car.

"So, only in L.A. does it take two hours to get to the airport. Well, New York too, but still... I hope Ollie got everything together with his jet." Chloe tried to restart conversation, and failed miserably. She sighed and waited to get to the airport.

--


	7. Chapter 7 In which Lex meets his Father

Chapter 7

A bald man stood in an alleyway, somewhere in downtown L.A. He flipped open his expensive camera phone, took a few pictures, and moved out into the real street. The odd thing was, the corpses in the alley were mostly hacked up, probably from a heavy slashing weapon, like a longsword or an axe. Out in the street there were ashes up to the bald man's ankles, with charred bits of very non-human anatomy. The towering piles of bits looked like they were ripped off their respective bodies with obscene force. He took a few more photos with his phone, and knelt down to inspect the remains more closely.

"Mr. Luthor, We just received the police report. Apparently, people on this street heard sounds of fighting at about 1:15 AM. A couple of people claimed to see a rift with hordes of non-human things pouring out it, which, if true, would explain the corpses. But-" The bald man grinned companionably, and patted his aide on the shoulder.

"Riley, please, call me Lex. 'Mr.Luthor' is my father. He isn't around any more," Lex Luthor nodded to the carnage, "The only real question is what caused all of this. It looks like the fires of hell burned themselves out..."

"There were reports of a group of people with hand-to-hand weapons in that alley," Riley, ex-governmental monster hunter, pointed to the alley, where Lex just walked out of, " They were getting swarmed. But then there was apparently a male shout that shook the ground. There was a thunderclap which caused a lot of the siding to crack off the buildings, and then just silence, except for the sound of fire. Witnesses couldn't see what happened next because of the smoke."

"Where were the police during all of this?" Lex questioned his most recent addition to the 33.1 project. Riley had been part of some government program meant to deal with the rising incidences of the supernatural. He was a good find.

"This isn't a good part of town. I remember doing a couple of jobs down here for the Initiative. Not all the residents are... human, and there is a very high death rate among policemen in this area. So response time is a little slow," Riley supplied.

"How slow?"

"Up to an hour."

"Hmmm... Do you think it was a bomb?" Lex asked, half-seriously.

"Nah, bones generally stay intact from pure concussive force, unless they hit something, in which case it looks just like a broken bone from a fall. These limbs were pulled from their sockets by manual force. There's crushed sections on the pieces as well, suggesting something was clamped on there really tight. Also, there is no sign of an accelerant amongst the burned bodies. Best the police can tell is they got hit by an absurdly hot flame wave, which burnt them to ashes in seconds," Riley shook his head. He wished Buffy was here, or his wife, but that wasn't going to happen. The dead don't come back.

"Hello, Lex," Both Riley and Lex jumped a little at that voice. They slowly turned around.

"This is quite a scene, yes?" Lionel Luthor walked through the ashes of thousands, "There were over ten thousand deaths here, you know."

"Well, dad, this is a bit of a surprise. I'm afraid we didn't have time to clean up for your... return," Lex watched the way his father moved, slightly confused, but trying to keep a game face on.

Riley simply picked up a limb from the ground and heaved it at Lionel. Lex didn't have time to even look surprised when the remains passed right through his father's chest like he wasn't there.

"Lex, that's not your dad. That... is the First. A friend of mine in the same line of work tangled with this thing," Riley looked suspiciously at the Lionel-Figure, "It can look like anyone that has died. It knows practically everything."

The Lionel-figure merely smiled and shifted. A tall, dark-haired beauty in a military suit with all sorts of weapons buckled in. She started laughing as blood dripped from her fingers and slowly started to run from her nose, then her ears, her mouth, and finally her eyes. Gashes opened up on her body as though some invisible assailant were slicing her with ragged claws, and more blood poured down her body in huge gushes.

Riley's face hardened when his dead wife's body hit the ground in several pieces, still laughing. Lex's eyebrows rose a little.

"Would you prefer a different look?" The face morphed again to Lex's mother, as she was before she got sick. The bald man's face became unreadable, his eyes calculating his options.

"No. I'd like some answers. Why exactly are you playing with us? Don't you have anything better to do?" The billionaire asked. He simply crossed his arms.

"I rather think we could work together. I need some information," His mother's mouth asked, in a sneer that had never appeared on her face while she was alive.

"Do we have a choice?" Lex gave a small half smile.

The First Evil laughed.

"Well then, what do you need?" The bald man smiled, "I'm sure we can come to an arrangement."

--

"Huh," Clark said, "It's starting to rain."

A light drizzle began to hit the windshield of the car. The sky was dark and rumbling ominously. Lightning danced in the clouds.

"Oh, goody," Spike grumbled, "Still, no sun is good news. I won't burn up when I get out of the bloody car," He played with his jacket a little. He felt a little crowded with eight people crammed into Ollie's SUV. Clark, Ollie, Angel, and Illyria were in the trunk, and Spike, Charles, and Lois were in the front. Thankfully, Chloe was driving

Angel sighed. It had almost fifty years since he'd been in Metropolis. The place had changed a little, but it was still recognizable. Angel had watched the race riots from a fourth floor window of the Silver Campion Hotel, a small, slightly rundown place within four blocks of the infamous Suicide Slum. It wasn't a good time to be an ensouled vampire. The place was burned down to the ground in a class 5 riot, almost taking him with it. When the military was called in, he'd heard that almost fifty people had died during the actual riot, and another fifteen kicked the bucket during the attempts to break it up. There were almost 4000 participants.

Metropolis had a small and secretive supernatural community. It was hardly surprising; Kansas was a peripheral part of the bible belt. Those involved in the real occult community didn't want to get involved in a lynch mob. That said it was easy to hide here, because no-one was really looking for that sort of thing. Angel had a few contacts in Metropolis, but it wouldn't be smooth sailing like it was in L.A. or even Sunnydale, while it still existed. Also, Otter's blood would be in short supply, which was a shame. Mix it with pig's blood and you almost had something that tasted half decent.

"Hey Ollie, did you fit your limo with that special glass stuff?" Angel's reverie was interrupted by Clark's blurted question.

"No," Oliver said quizzically, "I haven't had time... "

"You didn't?" Spike's eyes narrowed, "Then how come I didn't burn up? I'm in bloody direct sunlight."

"It's the storm," Illyria, looking up at the rapidly blackening clouds.

Clark rolled down the window, letting in the raindrops. He paused for a second and then nodded.

"I really think things are going to get out of hand," Clark said, "Very, very soon. Maybe you should get a hold of that other team, Ollie."

"Yeah," Ollie stared at the clouds as they formed screaming skulls, "That, is an awesome idea."

"And you know what the worst bit of all this is? I'm missing 'Passions'!" Spike grumbled.

--

"Why Metropolis?" Lex asked, slightly confused.

The First smiled, "Because, except for the most recent event, everything... odd, has happened in Smallville and Metropolis. Like that bus, with the human-shaped indentation? Or Dark Thursday? How fast the reconstruction went? The list goes on. Whatever has awakened, did it in that area. Metropolis has had an increasing number of these odd events, where as Smallville's number has radically dropped over the years. So I'm going to try Metropolis first. Then if that doesn't work, Smallville is next."

"Ah," The bald man rubbed his scalp, "Kinda lacks subtlety, doesn't it?"

The First Evil smiled with Lionel's face, and looked down at the lab, full of meteor rocks. Turok Han soldiers set the fragments in the pommels of hundreds of swords and other weapons. There were nearly four thousand of them in this facility, and apparently quite a few more en route to Metropolis. Like nearly ten thousand of these things, with meteor-rock enhanced weapons.

"Subtlety is for the weak, son. Never forget that," The First looked at Lex and rubbed Lionel's mouth, "Just know what you want, and take it, by whatever means necessary."

Lex Luthor shook his head in amazment, "You almost could be my dad. Almost. He was a great believer in subtlety."

"Yes, and look where it got him. Do you know why he was so 'subtle'? He was a afraid. Of Daddy beating him. He found out you could do whatever you wanted as long as Daddy didn't find out," The First sneered.

"Then he had his father blown up."

"As did you. Karma's a bitch, eh?"

--

Everyone in the SUV tensed up as they heard a terrible rumbling. Angel glared at the clouds, Spike smoked even more ferociously, Illyria grabbed her axe handle almost tight enough to break it, Charles Gunn nervously watched the buidings, Chloe yelped, Lois cradled her head and wished the noise would stop, Ollie pulled a hand crossbow out of thin air, and Clark closed his eyes and listened. Then, a building fell down right in front of them. The driver's side was crushed under two tons of cement pillar. SUV's, when confronted with a lot of concrete, tend to crumple, not flip like a smaller car. Thankfully, Clark managed to open all the doors at super speed, and push the more resilient passengers out, while carrying the mortals to the side. The car was mashed against the fallen concrete.

Of course, Clark was nowhere in sight.

However, a note was burned into the tar: '8 more buildings have collapsed, this one was empty. Call the Watchers. I think something is coming up beneath them. We are going to need back up.'

It wasn't signed.

A/N: Edited to fix some internal inconsistencies.


	8. Chapter 8 In which the Trap is sprung

A/N: First of all, thank you all for the glowing reviews, and the more critical ones. Both are greatly appreciated.

Second of all, Kryptonite. In Smallville, it's kind of used as a catch-all way to make Clark weak, but given what the first episode laid out for it's powers, well... there's been some serious power creep. It has to be, for a small gemstone-sized piece, 5 feet away from Clark to have any noticeable effect. It does however take away all of his powers, if he gets too close. It's conceivable that larger pieces have a larger radius of effect, but I envisioned the stones in each pommel being about the size of the one in Lana's necklace.

Given what Kryptonite can do, Clark would have to be a moron to be hurt by it. As long as he's five feet away, he's got options. Like heat vision, super-breath, super-speed get-aways, _x-ray vision_, or heck, even just throwing something. If it's in a lead box, and they try take it out to use it on him, all he has to do is take it away from his enemy at super-speed, flash-seal it with his heat vision, or even better, he can do both! Also, Clark is supposed to be pretty bloody smart, so I would assume that he'd be able to figure out these rudimentary strategies and possibly even more complicated ones, like stealing lead paint from a store (he could just pay it back later...) or similar ideas.

As to how Lex got a hold of enough stones for all of the swords... Well... He is a billionaire in control of a multinational corporation that has extensive research facilities focussed just on ways to use the meteor rocks. I can't imagine that it would be too difficult for him to lay hands on some rocks. Without any further ado...

Chapter 8

Xander Harris wasn't liking Metropolis all that much. The air was smoggy, the drivers were rude- always honking whenever Wills drove him anywhere, It relied on nuclear power from a shoddy plant that they were now standing in front of, and last but not least, the city had already cropped up an apocalypse when he had been there less then a week.

Frankly, if there was any city that deserved an apocalypse, it was a tie between Metropolis or Gotham. Now though, Xander was leaning towards Metropolis winning out. In an odd way, he actually missed Sunnydale. Sure it may have been a Hellmouth, but at least people knew what was going on. It meant that he, Xander Harris, Nerd Extraordinaire, got treated a lot better.

"Wills, are we sure that the seers meant Metropolis? Why couldn't it be Miami?"

Willow sighed. Xander was a great guy, but he just never seemed to really get entirely beyond the petulant teenager he was in high school. Heck, he still had a Klingon Dictionary and still watched every Star Trek spinoff religiously. He even had a poster of the Dax girl who was totally hot. Willow could never keep the Daxes names straight.

"Yes, the seers were sure, and dolphins," Willow snipped back.

"Dolphins?"

"Dolphins."

"Seriously, you think dolphins are why there aren't any apocalypses in Miami?"

"Yes. They're cute and happy, so it drives all the evil stuff away."

"So we just should have got a tank of dolphins and everything would have been great in Sunnydale. That would be so cool; I wonder if there are dolphin Slayers?"

"Yep," Sometimes it was great having said high school kid in a grown-up's body. He could always be relied upon to run with a joke. Even in soon-to-be-dangerous situations. Like this one.

All of the seers currently employed by the Watcher's Council suddenly fell down screaming about a week ago. They all said exactly the same thing. The First Evil was back, and something terrible was going to go down in Metropolis, Kansas. They didn't say it so clearly, but that was the gist. It wasn't even Apocalypse season for about six months. It was only November, If it had been May, no-one would have batted an eye. It would have been another normal apocalypse. The ground started shaking, Willow nearly fell down.

"Well, looks like our apocalypse is right on schedule," Willow almost giggled.

"Get the hell out of the way, Willow!" Xander tackled her, narrowly getting her out of the way of what looked like a part of a coolant tower. He wouldn't have been so lucky. Xander might have lost a leg, except that suddenly the huge chunk of construction was 20 feet away, resting on the ground as though nothing happened.

Both ex-Sunnydalites looked at the power plant, as klaxons started to ring and people ran out of the building. A recorded woman's voice sounded out the standard warnings for a meltdown. Then what looked like the component parts of a reactor core were thrown straight through the roof, and the warnings stopped. Willow's mouth hung open, as though letting the bugs in would help make sense of what just happened. Xander's eyepatch was flipped up, revealing an empty socket.

That was when the entire facility imploded. Huge pieces of masonry fell not twenty feet away from Willow and Xander. A particularly large chunk was cracked in half, as though it hit something incredibly hard.

"Xander, you okay?" The witch asked in a tremulous voice. Thoughts raced through her head, mostly concerning how completely insane this whole situation was.

"Yeah, I'm just dusty. Uh... are those figures in the ruins? I can't tell," Xander's voice was a little muffled by her stomach, "Are they holding... swords?"

The two huge, cracked concrete slabs were thrown like frisbees at the creatures in the dust. Inhuman screams echoed through the air.

"Turok Han..." Willow breathed.

A humanoid figure clambered out of a hole in the ground where the slabs had once fallen. A humanoid figure wearing what looked like the remains of a flannel shirt and jeans. He, it was definitely a guy, shook his head, getting some of the dust out of his hair

"Are you two okay?" He asked. Oddly enough, his voice was unaffected by the poor air quality, with all the rock dust. Willow was coughing a little, and Xander had sneezed once or twice.

"Y-yeah, we're good," Xander sneezed again. The youngish man flipped his eyepatch down and tried to get a better look at their... savior, maybe?

"What were those things? You called them Turok Han, right? They were at the other sites; I had to destroy them," The man said with a noticeable amount of regret in his voice.

That was not what they expected the guy who survived a slab of cement bigger than the car they drove to say. His head turned, "There are more on the way, I think about a hundred of them," He winced, "They just broke through the concrete I threw in the hole."

"Err... they're kind of like proto-vampires, and well, they are pretty strong," Willow shrugged in Xander's bear-hug.

"Ah," The man said as more Turok Han crawled out of the hole, about a hundred feet from Xander. His mouth quirked when he saw the green stones in the pommels. His eyes glittered, and the entire first rank caught on fire. Ironically those who were unfortunate to fall under his gaze passed the fire on to those who were behind them, which seemed to give the man an idea. Chunks of concrete knocked those on fire into clumps of unburnt comrades, seemingly coming from nowhere. Xander blinked when he saw the entire detachment go up in flames. The entire fight had only lasted a few seconds. The, well, super-man looked across the city, and froze, an expression of anguish slowly spread on his face, "Lana..."

"Holy shit on a shit sandwich with a side order of diarrhea... How the-" Xander started, but the super-man wasn't there anymore. He'd just disappeared.

"What did he mean 'other sites'?" Willow asked, her body finally shaking off the shock.

--

Green Arrow, still in civvies, shot an arrow into one of the things pouring out of the gaping hole. It didn't do a whole lot. Silently, he cursed using titanium arrow shafts. Angel passed him a stake with a quick toss. The heavier weapons had been in a different car, which was probably already at his apartment by now. Only Illyria had her beloved axe; she didn't let it leave her sight, let alone her grasp.

Fortunately, Green Arrow had his panic button. It would, in theory, get the rest of his team to home in on his position. The problem was that Cyborg and Aquaman were all the way in Thailand, tracking down some 33.1 project. A corporate jet would get them here in a day and a half. Impulse was the only one who could respond in time. Bart was a good kid, but his inexperience in a real fight might actually be a little bit of a liability in what was effectively a warzone.

Unfortunately, Clark wouldn't be able to close with the creatures, when he showed up. Ollie may be a piss poor geologist, but he could recognize Kryptonite when he saw it. It was pretty distinctive. Not being able to close meant that he was fairly limited in what he could do to them.

Green Arrow pulled out a flare bolt and reloaded his crossbow. That shot downed one of the creatures and caught about four others on fire. It created a very effective deterrent. He smiled. Spike grinned. Illyria charged into the fray and started to hack up the things that weren't burning.

In a few minutes, the archer had expended his flares and he and his allies were bottled up, by around 80 of these creatures. They'd only taken down 20 or so, even with the fires he'd set. Illyria was guarding the entrance to their little bottleneck, about 30 feet from the car.

"So now what do we do?" Lois asked. Her arm was broken, in two places from the feel of it, "Where's Clark?"

"He must have gotten thrown into a pile of rubble or something. It doesn't matter. All the things-" Oliver said.

"Turok Han," Spike corrected.

"-Right, are surrounding us, and Clark is probably unconscious, near where the car got wrecked. If he's not unconscious, he's getting help. So we've got a bigger problem-"

"Hey. My cell phone is getting reception," Chloe looked startled, "One bar, but it will get us through to what's-her-face. Buffy."

"Yeah, I don't think we really need to do that," Spike's grin grew even larger, "She's here."

"Must be one of the advantages of working with seers," Ollie grumbled, a little annoyed that everyone kept interrupting him. Then he saw what twenty Slayers could do when fully armed to the teeth. The Turok Han were scattered, like dust on the wind. The weird thing was, that after about two minutes of fighting all the proto-vampires burned. Every. Single. One of them. Even the ones that hadn't even reached combat yet. Clark popped up near the car, pretending to nurse a lump on his head.

"So, uh... what happened?" Clark asked, a slightly dazed look on his face. Chloe realized yet again, how good a liar Clark Kent was. Even Lois bought it.

--

Riley Finn was pissed. At his new employer, primarily. He was also piss drunk. He hated having to watch his wife die, again. Ironically, it wasn't anything like how his wife actually died. She wasn't all ripped apart. She died in a hospital bed from some sort of radiation poisoning. He got to say good-bye, but it had felt hollow. It hadn't felt real until her heart stopped thirty seconds after he finished his sentence. That was the day that Riley Finn officially quit the government. After all, it kinda was their fault that his wife got exposed to the radiation in the first place.

So Riley ended up at Luthorcorp; they were paying a fortune for anyone with experience in monster hunting. It wasn't particularly difficult work, but it did keep him on his toes. The 'meteor freaks' Lex and his father wanted were, for the most part, scared teenagers with some fairly random ability. That had always rankled a little, but it meant that he generally only needed a tranq gun and surprise to do the job.

Then came L.A.; that was an eye-opener. When he walked down that street, looking at the haphazard piles of monstrous bits, it was like looking at... he didn't have words to describe it. Lex Luthor had compared it to Hell. Maybe he wasn't too far off. Riley took another pull of the excellent scotch. He remembered how the ashes kept getting in his socks, it was almost six inches deep. What kind of weapon could do that? Then it hit him that no weapon caused all this destruction; whatever did it, mutilated all of these monsters with it's bare, humanoid hands. Riley had actually found a, well, bruise on one of the arms that definitely suggested a five fingered hand.

So, there was an insanely powerful superhuman on the loose. And it's first action was to destroy a bunch of monsters. They might have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but something about the situation suggested to Riley that it may have been intentional. If this superhuman could just burn them, then why did it tear some to pieces? It must have been angry at them. It wanted to destroy them painfully.

Damn. Riley really needed a new bottle of scotch. Lex Luthor was working with the First Evil. There was a superhuman on the loose that hated monsters like Nietzsche's hated religious figures. He needed to find the Scoobies, maybe they did succeed in bringing her back. Riley hadn't been around to find out, although he'd heard of a new Watcher's Council being formed. That's where he'd go. They'd know what to do...

--


	9. Chapter 9 In which the Jig is Up

Chapter 9

There was an awkward silence.

It was amazing how a bunch of people, who save the world on a regular basis, are always so unsure around each other when they meet for the first time. Buffy thought it was effectively a huge insecurity thing. 'Did my saving the world thing match up to theirs'? That sort of thing. A pissing contest.

That line of reasoning appealed to Xander primarily because in image of Buffy in a pissing contest was immensely amusing. However, it also started to make a lot sense to him when he saw the super-man, mowing through those Turok Han, with the same amount of effort one used to swat flies. Xander was totally in awe of whoever disarmed a nuclear power plant that was in the process of melting down, while still managing to destroy all the monsters attacking innocents. Actually, Buffy had kinda laughed off Willow and Xander when they'd told her about what they saw.

Angel and his group were sitting in the light for once, they didn't mind the whole necromantically-charged storm thing as much as the rest of the people in the luxurious room. There was a tall blonde guy, who Xander thought owned the place, a blonde girl, a brunette girl with a temper problem, and a kid, maybe fifteen, who was eating the chips and dip with amazing gusto. Xander swore he could actually see the chip level sink in the massive tub. It was quite impressive. Buffy was staring at him too. Giles was being all stuffy and polite, but was equally awed.

"So, uh, what exactly's going on?" The blonde guy started off, "I mean, there's some sort of supernatural thing going on in the storm, buildings are collapsing, and there are these evil proto-vampire thingies trying eat everyone."

Willow piped up, "Well... an apocalypse. The seers saw the First Evil rise again, and try to destroy the Last Son, whoever that may be, and then try to destroy the world. Pretty standard, except for the Last Son bit. We've combed over every prophecy about the end of the world, and no-one is referred to the 'Last Son'. It's always has an 'of something' in there. Like 'the Last Son of Rome' or 'the Last Son of the Illuminated Order of Ee' ; stuff like that."

The brunette snorted in disbelief. Xander rolled his eye at her. Some people had a problem accepting magic when it stared them in the face, and apparently this temper-girl (Xander liked that nick-name, he thought he would keep it,) was one of them. That was when everything went to hell.

That was when the super-man walked through the door.

--

Clark was a little bewildered when the greasy-haired man with the eyepatch pointed at him and yelled, "Buffy, that's the guy we saw!"

Lois looked at curiously at her friend. It was the first time someone had openly pointed Clark out as something special. There was already an absolute ton of kindling for her curiosity, this merely was the straw that broke the camel's back. Now she flat out knew that Clark was different. Apparently he could be in two places at once.

"Er... I am?" Clark gave his best deer-in-the-headlights impression. Inside he was scared and a little angry.

"Where did- " Lois tried to ask, but Clark interrupted her, "Lois, get your dad on the phone. This city is going to be a warzone soon. You need to go and bring the army in."

"Whoa, who is this guy?" Buffy was startled, "And how did he meet Willow and Xander? And you have army connections?"

"Uh... Well, this is Clark Kent, he's a farm boy from Smallville, and I'm not entirely sure how he met your friends... Care to enlighten us, Clarkie?" Lois smirked, and Chloe just hung her head. Bart scarfed more chips while trying not to laugh. Clark simply ignored her question; he was having none of the little games Lois was trying to set up.

"No, I don't. Lois, there isn't time for explanations. You should call your dad- Wait, actually you should drive to your dad and personally convince him to come," Clark steered Lois to the door. Lois looked like she was about to murder the farm boy; she had expected a dodge, like Clark usually used, rather than the outright refusal to talk she'd gotten. Now she knew for certain she was being kept out of the loop.

"Clark, your hands are cold! Get them off of me, and start explaining, there's always time for an explanation, " Lois growled. Chloe, however started to put the pieces together. Clark was always warm, he always had a temperature of 101.3, and never once had cold hands. Ever. But, he was burning up a lot of energy, and the storm was necromantically charged... The necro-glass blocked his ability absorb sunlight, why wouldn't said storm? Kryptonite enhanced weapons? Chloe actually blanched when she realized what was going on.

"Lois, do you know how bad it's gotten out there? Twelve more buildings have collapsed. Twelve! And those Cro-Magnon vampire guys were all over the place, but they burned up. Get your head out of your ass and get the army in!" Clark was practically yelling by the end his rant. He was actually shaking Lois a little. Chloe hadn't seen him this scared except with... Zod, maybe. Usually Clark was extremely level-headed in a fight; Chloe'd always figured it was an alien reaction to stress, but it could just be that Clark hadn't ever really encountered what could be a stressful situation for him.

"Clark, is it really that bad?" Chloe whispered, knowing full well Clark would hear her. He nodded in her direction. The blonde reporter simply took her cousin by the arm, and led her to the elevator of Ollie's apartment.

"You haven't heard the last of this, Smallville!" Lois yelled as Chloe pulled her into the elevator.

--

Xander was confused by the whole spectacle. If he had super-powers, he'd want the world to know. It seemed that the super-man had a different opinion. Then again, Xander grew up a little starved for attention. Or at least the right kind of attention.

"Look, I'm sorry you all got to see that. Today is really a fantastically bad day," The super-man stumbled. He actually, physically stumbled. Granted, he stumbled through a concrete coffee table and when he hit the ground there was a crater, but he still stumbled. When Xander last saw him, the super-man was graceful- inhumanly graceful, so this clumsy oaf was a bit of a shock.

Oliver, the blonde guy, helped Clark the super-man up. The weary farm boy found a couch and carefully laid down.

"Are you okay, Clark? What happened?" Oliver actually looked scared. Bart froze for a minute or two before scarfing more chips.

"A trap... this whole city is a trap for me," Clark laughed a little bitterly, "The magic storm that blocks sunlight, the kryptonite weapons, the falling buildings with people to save... It's designed to starve me... and then kill me. "

This simple declaration put everybody off guard.

"There's some kind of force field around the city that I can't break out of. I tried charging it, somewhere past the sound barrier, and gave it everything I had, and I bent it out of shape a fair bit, but I got stuck, and pushed back in..." Clark just closed his eyes, "Normal people can get through. I watched people driving through it without even knowing it was there. One guy just walked through..."

"Wait a second... Starve you? What do you eat...?" Buffy asked.

"Sunlight. His can photosynthesize most bands of solar radiation to give him energy for his abilities. He's like a walking solar battery. The thing is, who would do this?" Oliver played with the hem on his tee-shirt. This was the first time he'd ever seen Clark really weak. Sure he'd seen him sickened by kryptonite, hurt by magic, but he'd never ever seen Clark worn out. In fact, Clark had a slight sheen on him that could almost be sweat. He'd never seen Clark sweat. In fact, Ollie was under the impression that sweat glands weren't included in the alien biology package.

"The First... He's 'the Last Son'?" Willow practically fell out of her chair.

"Uh... The First? The Last Son? What are you talking about, luscious?" Bart asked.

Willow and Giles shared a glance.

"The First is the incarnation of the first Evil act to ever occur. The Last Son is supposedly a, well, god, who has something that the First Evil fears above all."

"Yeah, well, legends get inflated a little over time," Clark smiled lazily, "For instance, I forgot to take a shower today, and now my feet smell decidedly ungodly. Maybe it fears my feet."

Oddly enough people actually laughed at his pathetic joke, but it was just so tense that even the most poorly conceived joke was amusing. Everything was just spiraling downward with each newly discovered fact. They needed a plan.

--

The First Evil appeared to sit in a luxurious chair and smile. Lex had grown to hate that smile. It was simply unpleasant to look at. Particularly since it was on the face of his mother.

"So I take it that your immortal enemy is proving significantly less than indestructible?" Lex asked, in his slightly mocking manner. Somehow, magically, the First Evil could watch what happened in it's little trap. That was another thing that the less hairy Luthor hated. Magic.

Oh, Magic was powerful as all hell, and theoretically it might solve the world's problems, but the fact of the matter was that it had a way of biting you in the ass rather painfully. Lex's intuition told him that The First was going find out first-hand. Even if it was sort of omnipotent, it was no where near omniscient. If you don't know everything, you can't cover all the bases.

"Hmm? I was just watching the Last Son suffer. It is immensely satisfying," His mother's face gave him a flash of horror. Lex was hardly a good man. He never claimed to be one, but there were limits. He didn't mind killing people, but he'd never tortured someone if it was unnecessary. If it was, then he had no qualms, but suffering for it's own sake was pointless, inefficient.

"You know, I think it's time to personally meet my nemesis. Have him meet my son, perhaps do a little gambling on the outcome..." The First laughed a little, in his mother's deceptively innocent giggle.

Lex decided that this whole endeavor was a poor business venture. He'd have to do something about it.

--

Caleb was bored with merely punching through iron and cement. It was sort of entertaining for a while. So he started torturing the Turok-Han, by ripping them apart, letting them heal, and then ripping them apart again.

Then his master walked through the door, followed by five bringers. The bringers formed a pentagram, and then ritually committed suicide, one at each point. A rift opened in the air.

"It's showtime!" The First smiled.

--


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"Chloe, I want answers. This is getting ludicrous," Lois sighed. They were in Chloe's little VW Bug convertible, cruising down the highway towards the Smallville military base where Sam Lane was stationed currently. The radio was playing some chick rock. Chloe was tapping along to the beat with her thumbs on the steering wheel. She was also wishing that Lois would just take the hint. Clark wanted to protect her from everything that was going to hit Metropolis in a few hours. Chloe didn't know the details; she had a distinct feeling that she wouldn't want to know until after everything was settled down and good. She did know that Clark was sure that whatever was going on was targeting him. Given the set-up with necro-storm and the kryptonite weapons, Chloe tended to agree with him. Since he was the target, he moved his friends away from himself, and he put them in a place where they would be protected; out in the daylight, surrounded by guys with lots of different weapons.

It also implied that Clark might not be able to protect them. That really scared Chloe, more than anything else. In all honesty, Chloe's bowels had long passed the liquid state, and were turning in plasma... not a pleasant experience.

"Chloe! What the hell is going on?" Lois yelled, turning off the radio.

"Lois, did you listen at all? Something is attacking Metropolis and they want us to get the military involved," Chloe said, technically keeping to the truth.

"Yeah, right. Then why doesn't anyone answer me? I feel like a broken record," Lois sneered, "So seriously, what is going on? Why doesn't anyone trust me?"

_Because no-one wants to used as a weapon, Lois,_ Chloe thought. Even if her cousin could keep the secret, if there was a single slip up, any one of her friends could have their lives snatched away. Uncle Lane may be a nice guy underneath his bulldog persona, but he would do whatever it took to protect his country. She'd done a little bit of research and knew exactly what her uncle was capable of. Chloe didn't doubt for a second that he would force her super-powered friends to become a living arsenal for America. She also knew that Lois wouldn't want that.

Clark had explained this all to Chloe once.

"Chloe, are you even listening to me?" Lois glared at Chloe.

"Lois... Look. There are a lot of things that you don't know about your friends. Things that could get you and them killed. Or worse," Chloe let that sink in for a moment, "They're trying desperately to protect you from it."

"Whatever. You realize that I don't need protecting, right?" Lois gave her cousin a look that oozed disdain, "So you could tell me, but since you aren't... You agree with them."

Chloe could hear the betrayal in Lois' voice. Lois was never good at hiding her emotions.

"Lois, get a grip!"

"I have a grip! I can handle myself! Why can't people see that?"

"Lois, do you think bringing in the Army is a bad idea?" Chloe sighed.

"No..."

"Let's do the mission, alright? Worry about the answers later?"

"Fine..."

--

Riley Finn was at the head of about a hundred Turok Han. He absolutely hated it. There was some sort of magic shortening the distance from LA to Metropolis in these caves, but it was still a hour's march with bloodthirsty proto-bloodsuckers. He'd made a ton of mistakes in his life, but this had to take the cake.

The First's plan was as solid as any he'd heard. Honestly, he doubted even a superhuman could survive the four hundred or so normal vampires carrying sub-machine guns with this thing's weakness fashioned into bullets. This superhuman would be worn out by the new and improved Caleb, assuming that it didn't kill the superhuman by itself. Riley couldn't see how the superhuman would even be able to hurt Caleb. The First had invested in some major mojo to protect it's high priest.

In fact, if he understood properly, the superhuman could touch Caleb. Literally.

Everything was just going wrong. He needed to escape, find the Watchers, help them. Now that Riley thought about it, they were likely to be in Metropolis. If they were anything like the old council, they'd have a battle group there trying to secure some peace for the normals.

The beginnings of a plan formed in Riley Finn's brain.

--

"Wait... you're telling me that you know that we're going to be betrayed and you aren't going to do a thing about it?" Lex nearly had a fit. In reality, he'd already told all of his least loyal employees about his new business partner in hopes that there might be a leak. But still, being immortal was no excuse for being stupid.

"You don't get it Lex," His mother's face turned vicious, "I want my enemies to know I'm coming. I want them to feel the despair. They can't stop me from killing the superhuman. Nothing can."

Lex sneered at that. The only truth in Lex's mind was that everything could be stopped. There wasn't anything on this earth that was unstoppable. There was always a way.

"Who is this 'superhuman' anyway?" The real Luthor tried to pump the First Evil for information.

"Wouldn't you like to know? You were destined to be his ultimate rival, and all that jazz. But you should be thanking me; now you wont have to try to kill him. He'll be out of the way and you can be a minor duke in the new Order of things," The First laughed in a horrible, triumphant crow.

Running a hand over his bald head, he gritted his teeth. A Luthor would never settle for a minor duke.

"While a minor dukedome is... Well, actually it's a little insulting. I'm sure you will do better, after all, I am helping you a lot."

The First looked at him. Then it shook his mother's head and laughed. It loved insolence. It loved greed. Hell, it loved all the big sins and all the little ones. After all, human evil was it's most recent child, besides Caleb.

"No, I won't. Now go play with your stoolies."

Lex's day just kept getting worse.

--

Caleb loved the smell of eviscerations in... well... He thought it was the afternoon, but it was kind of hard to tell with the storm. Not that he particularly cared. He looked around. The city was silent. A quick count of his troops revealed that he was down a hundred Turok Han. He didn't even care.

He had enough troops to take over a small country; a hundred or so wouldn't make a difference.


	11. Chapter 11: In which Clark gets angry

**Chapter 11**

"They've arrived," Clark muttered, levering himself off the couch in Ollie's apartment in Metropolis.

"Who has?" Willow asked. She was sitting near the ruins of the coffee table. Giles stood near her, primarily for solidarity. As much as they liked the alien on the couch, it was a little intimidating to be around someone who can break concrete by just stumbling.

"About a thousand Turok Han, and maybe two hundred normal vampires. The Turok Han have Kryptonite in their swords, and the vamps have assorted sub-machine guns with Kryptonite bullets; that's some serious hardware and a lot of Meteor rock... I'd love to know where they got all of it."

"Where the First is concerned... anything is possible," Giles reminded everyone, "It probably has resources it hasn't tapped in hundreds of years. For all we know this is only the tip of the iceberg."

Oliver paced around his desk, occasionally fiddling with his laptop. He didn't like this situation at all. Who would have that amount of green K, just lying around? Something was niggling at the back of his mind, but he couldn't place it, "Tip of the iceberg, huh? I've got a bad feeling about this... Titanically bad, actually. This isn't something that could be called up at the drop of a hat, right?"

Willow and Giles nodded.

"Then whatever voodoo-ed up the barriers has been planning this for a good long while," Bart smiled, proud that he'd kept up with the conversation. He frowned when the ramifications became clear to his rather erratic brain.

"Uh, guys... I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but there are more proto-vamps and vamps pouring out of some tunnels near the barrier," Clark paced nervously.

"How do you know that?" Giles asked quickly, "Do you have X-ray vision or something on top of super hearing and super-strength?"

Clark had a small smile on his face, "Incidentally, Mr. Giles, I like the ink on your left buttock. I was always more a fan of Rick Griffin rather than R. Crumb, though. Shame you got it removed; I can see the scar tissue and the shadow of the ink."

"Ah," The look on Giles' face was priceless, "You do realize that would have been useful to know before. Anything else in the power department you forgot to mention?"

"Let's see Super-Strong, Super-Fast, Invulnerable except for some kinds of radiation, Super Hearing, Heat Vision, X-Ray Vision, and Super-Breath," Clark's face went unreadable, "That's it, as far as I know. Now can we-"

"As far as you know?" Willow's eyes bugged out, "What, do your powers just accidently mug you in alley or something?"

"Basically. Now does anybody have a plan? I hate to stress this point, but there are reinforcements arriving... They're heading right up Main Street..." Clark was starting to look a little angry.

"Clark, you've got all the information! You figure out the damn plan!" Ollie kicked his desk.

"Fine! Bart, you get all the civilians within about a mile radius of Main Street to safety. Giles, get Buffy to take the Slayers and smash the normal vamps; the ones with the assault rifles. They've split off from the main group and are taking positions along the roof tops. Ollie, you're going to lead one of Buffy's teams, Angel you've got another, Spike gets another one, Same for Illyria, Xander, and Charles. Willow, can you transmute stuff?"

"Yeah, but it goes all gooey after an hour or so..."

"That's fine. Get me as much pure Lead as you can from the broken coffee table, then try to see if you can lower the barrier" Clark gestured. Everyone paused for a second.

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" Clark asked.

--

Caleb growled as he stalked down the Metropolis street, venting his anger on the cars, just stopped in the road with the doors open. There wasn't anyone even around for him to kill, except for his thousands of creatures. To be entirely fair, they were just as frustrated as he was. They'd overturned a couple of cars, broken some windows in lieu of enemy skulls; kid stuff.

That was when a giant petroleum truck flew through the air and detonated above the largest mass of Turok Han.

Nearly three hundred of his troops were decimated when the explosion first hit, and the shrapnel decapitated a few more, a couple were just pinned to the cement from the flying debris. When Caleb's eyes adjusted back to the twilit conditions, he realized that most of his army was now in bits. There were only a few left; and there was no reasonable explanation.

"Magic," snarled the monstrous thing as it forced itself onto it's twisted, misshapen feet. It glanced around as most of the remaining Turok Han were vaporized. The odd thing was that all the swords were gone. What was just as odd, was that he was getting no cover fire from the buildings he positioned his gunmen on. This was, in his mind a sign that things had gone entirely wrong. In a bad way.

A man walked of the smoke. The last Turok Han charged him, only to be dusted when it's head suddenly flew ten feet in the air, without the body. There were four cracks that could have been gunfire, but no bullets got anywhere near the man. Caleb smiled his broken mirror smile, and charged at the first living thing he'd seen since he'd come to the surface, the man in the smoke.

The man's eyes glittered and there was a slight burning sensation on Caleb's chest, but he didn't notice. He slammed into the air where his nemesis used to be. The super-thing really was fast.

"So you don't burn..." The man muttered. The horrible monstrosity laughed in a horrible death rattle, "No, I don't. I take it you're that damn fool super-thing that's been giving my master a hard time."

"Err... Your master?" The man ran his fingers through his black hair. The abomination could clearly read the honest confusion on super-thing's face. Caleb edged closer to the man and when he was close enough he slashed with a gigantic scythe arm, fast enough to cause a small sonic boom. The man nearly got away, but he got a red line down his chest, which soon blackened. His flesh seemed to die around the cut for about five seconds, until it all healed. Apparently scars were a deeper color on this enemy; Caleb like to leave a mark.

--

Clark watched as his wound sealed up. This fight was starting look a little more grim. Apparently the scythe claw, dangling off one of the twisted mockery of a demon's shoulders was not only functional, but also poisonous. And it was probably magical in nature. On top of everything, he was nearly running on empty. He'd called on almost all of his reserves to heal whatever was on that claw, destroy the proto-vamp army, and now he had to figure out a way to destroy this... thing... that seemed quite able to kill him.

More importantly, Clark's lead shielding was disrupted somewhat. He'd used the soft lead like sun block. He'd just rubbed it into his skin with his super-strength. Clark had gotten the idea watching Lana sunbathe one day... He put Lana from his mind, not wanting to think about her during a fight. It cheapened the memories he had of her. He felt a deep shame for what happened.

He punched the creature in front of him at super-speed only to see his hand go straight through the beast's head, without causing any damage. He must have thrown a hundred punches only to have them ghost through. So he picked up a car and smashed it down on the creature, which did damage it, but it mostly just ripped the car apart. He couldn't burn it, his flesh couldn't touch it, but it could slice him up.

Dear lord, Clark Kent hated magic.


	12. Chapter12 In which the problem is solved

Chapter 12

Buffy hated being impotent.

And right now, she was watching a fight she wouldn't even be of use in. Clark Kent really wasn't human. At first she hadn't really bought it. An Alien? Pfft... yeah, whatever. Right now, she as starting to wonder if maybe he was a demon or something. But, the thing was, every demon she had come across, she was pretty much capable of going toe to toe with, provided she was armed.

But when Buffy watched concrete bubble and melt under **his** gaze, she knew that if she were to fight **him**, she would be destroyed without even time to react.

Because for all her power, compared to a normal person, she was still human. Just a little different. Clark clearly wasn't. A tide of molten glass caught the hideously mutated Caleb's feet; Buffy couldn't even see the non-human. The glass suddenly cooled, with a sound like a summer breeze. Cracks appeared, as steam escaped through the rapidly cooled glass. Caleb snarled something in a tongue older than man, and tried to take a step on his glass encrusted feet. He kept slipping around, his awkward, mutated body's crappy balance working against him.

"It's unbelievable, isn't it?" A familiar voice muttered behind her. She whirled around, two stakes already in her hands. Riley Finn, ex-monster hunter, stood behind her. He grinned at her, a little sheepishly.

"Riley? But... What are you doing here?" Buffy was shocked. He was probably the last person she expected to see here.

"Well, long story short, I was working for Luthorcorp, well, it's Lexcorp now, as a mutant hunter. Lex fell in with a bad crowd, and I defected."

"Bad crowd?"

"The First Evil and its gang."

"Yeah, bad crowd."

"Actually, we met it at this crazy crime scene, thousands of demons annihilated-"

"10,753, to be honest"

Both humans jumped. They saw Clark walk surprisingly calmly over to them, looking a little whiter than usual, from the lead rubbed into his skin. The scar on his chest had already healed into invisibility, and he had a small, sad smile on his face.

"I've got him pretty much immobilized, and he's not the brightest bulb in the box. His feet, knees, and his hands are covered in glass. He can't get a grip, and since he's only got close range stuff, he-"

"How can you tell it's male?" Riley blurted in his nervousness. This was the creature that ripped through armies of demons with nary a thought. The ex-monster hunter was practically wetting himself in terror.

"X-ray vision. It allows me to see a lot of things. His skeleton is still mostly human; it's just got all these growths off of it. It hurts him just to move... I can see that the electricity flow up his nerves to his brain is consistent with pain levels somewhere in the realm of getting your arm cut off by a rusty spoon and beheading by belt-sander..." The super-human shrugged his shoulders. He was still lower on energy than he would like, but things were going in his favor right now. It would take the horror in the newly cooled glass hours to move anywhere; Clark only needed minutes.

"Hey, Clark, Xander said you mentioned someone named Lana..." Buffy asked, "Is she... like you?"

The alien looked at his feet. After precisely 240 beats of his heart, he was calm enough to answer. He leveled his inhuman gaze at the Slayer, face still, as though carved from diamond.

"No, Lana was... She was my girlfriend. She died today," Clark sighed, "A brain hemorrhage, when I stopped the nuclear plant from melting down."

"Oh, _God_... I'm so sorry," The Slayer prime silently cursed her immense ability to put her foot in her mouth. That was possibly the absolute worst way to lose someone you care about dearly, if you're the hero type. Clark Kent was born with the 'good guy' genes in spades.

"Thank you. Do either of you know where I can find the First Evil?" Clark asked, his tone even.

Buffy shook her head, though Riley nodded.

"Last I saw of it, it was screwing with Lex's mind," The monster hunter answered, still a little scared, "I think they're still in L.A."

"And what exactly is the First Evil?"

"Well," Buffy scratched her head, "Basically it's an insubstantial wraith-thingy that can take the form of dead people. I think it can cast magic too," Riley nodded.

"A 'wraith-thingy'? I have an idea, I think. However, If you would tell all your forces to retreat back about 400 yards, and get any friendly Vampires under serious cover. I suspect things are going to get sunnier soon," Clark then stepped off the building, and floated.

"The First Evil didn't think to put a roof on its prison," The Alien told the Chosen One, "After all, humans can't fly."

--

General Lane was a cinch to convince. Ironically, Chloe and Lois had arrived about an hour before the first real reports from Metropolis. Lois Lane was feeling pretty good about herself. She completed the mission, and had gotten enough evidence to prove that Clark was different. Now if only Chloe would stop stonewalling, things would be on a serious turn for the better.

Except for the whole 'Metropolis is being destroyed by crazies' thing.

Chloe was enjoying her second ride in an Abrams tank. Lois grinned. Clark better give her answers... _or else..._

--

The steam burns had already begun to heal and Caleb was just as frustrated as he was before the fight began in earnest. Hellfire, that human-thing was powerful. The only damn reason Caleb even had a shot at killing it was because the First had protected him against its attacks. And to be entirely honest, the failed preacher knew this in his bones. Even with all the protections, the mutated monstrosity couldn't react fast enough to keep up with the alien's speed. Nor its brains. There was a hundred feet of broken glass for him to crawl through, just so that he would have a shot at keeping his balance. He couldn't even get enough leverage to stomp the glass off of his feet.

In some ways Caleb was glad that the alien was on the other side. First of all, even though a creature with that much raw power for an ally would make everything easier, it also meant that he would have had to compete with the damn thing for his master's affection, for which an evil version of his foe would have killed him. Without mercy.

Second of all, Caleb didn't play second string to no-one. Never.

And third... Caleb was a human, even if he didn't look or act like one in the strictest sense. There was a small, stagnant, hidden part of himself that felt bad about hurting people and generally wreaking havoc. A very secret, desolate part to be sure, and one that he'd never listened to. He was starting to fear retribution, not feel remorse. The fact of the matter was that he couldn't feel guilt since his daddy had hit him in the head with a car. After the operation and subsequent investigation, Caleb had been a new boy. An evil, twisted little boy.

But ever since his dad got carted off to jail on child abuse charges and attempted murder, there had been no-one who could put fear into the little boy's heart. Now, he was finally starting to think that all of his actions just might have consequences... And he began to feel young again. Not in a good way, either.

--

"What's wrong?" Lex asked curiously. The First suddenly looked like it had swallowed a bug. It started switching forms rapidly, finally settling on Lionel Luthor's form. His grimace could have murdered someone.

"My enemy is gone. He escaped. I severely underestimated him," The Lionel figure rubbed his hands together, "Apparently he can fly. I didn't know that. And that is a dangerous thing. How was he capable of-"

"Hey, First. Catch."

And so the First Evil of Earth found itself fighting for eternity with the Last Evil of Krypton in a small blackish crystal.

The crest of the House of El.

"Looks like that stopover at the north pole was worth it," Clark grinned to himself. He looked at Lex's unconscious body on the ground, breathing steadily. The bruise was on the back of the jaw, just below the ear. Clark shook his head and picked up the symbol of his birthworld with a handkerchief. He left Lex to sleep off the knockout tap that Lex had in fact taught Clark when they were still friends. Irony abounds when you're practically invincible.

Fortunately, despite his ruthlessness, Lex Luthor had a heartbeat to lock onto. When he got close enough he could even hear the First Evil conversing with the genius. Sometimes, Clark really was thankful for his super hearing.

--

Suddenly Caleb screamed. And didn't stop. He couldn't balance properly, even with his tail. He could barely lift one of his normal arms. His scythe-claw was already starting to rot off. He couldn't speak human words anymore, his monstrous anatomy made that impossible. He begged for help, but it came out as more screams. And there stood the super-human, who watched as the abomination rotted away. Caleb screamed for his father as he disappeared.

"So that's it?" Buffy all but growled. He could have ended it at any time. She realized that it would have gone against his character, but he could have just flown through the storm clouds, and basically been home scott free, even if he left the people to die at the hands of the vampiric army. He didn't, but Buffy really wished she... she didn't know what she felt right now, but she envied the alien. He could run away from it all if he wanted to. The fact that he didn't... it made Buffy almost admire him.

"The only thing left is dealing with the Army," Clark said quietly, "The good vampires are out of the sun, right?"

"Yeah, they have been since you gave the warning," Riley scratched his head, "Don't worry about the Army, I got them covered. Normal people have got to be good for something."

Clark smiled.

--

General Lane was surprised to see Lt. Finn, and when he heard the code phrase that was agreed between the Monster Hunter units and regular army officers, he rendered all reasonable assistance without asking questions. He knew enough to figure out that he wouldn't like the answers, if any were given. His unit quickly began to act as relief, building shelters, medical teams treated the wounded from the disaster (surprisingly few), and infantry cleared away the rubble.

He watched as his daughter searched for her friend, the Kent boy, in the masses of survivors. Sam actually liked the boy quite a bit. He was nice, smart, honest, tough, and just inept enough to not be arrogant. If anything, the boy was a little easy to scare, but it didn't seem to hold long before he got himself under control.

Lois had been having a tough time with him lately, something about secrets and craziness, but General Sam Lane was pretty sure that it would all blow over. Young girls tended to overreact to everything.

--

"So, the First Evil is bound in the crystal?" Giles asked.

"Yep! I wasn't a hundred percent sure, but given what you guys told me about the thing, I though there was a good chance it would work," Clark grinned, "And since all the spells it slung around no longer had a power source..."

"They'd collapse," Willow nodded, "Still, that was really kinda risky."

"Yeah, our lives were kinda on the line. I would have liked to have known, so that I could whine and complain about it longer," Xander groused. Honestly, he was pretty okay with the risky business that he'd gotten himself involved with. He'd grown up knowing he might die the next day; Sunnyhell was like that. Him being an adult now didn't change anything. Aww... who was he kidding. He wasn't an adult. He was still that goofy kid in high school who had no social skills. Xander liked it that way.

"I'll keep that in mind if this sort of thing happens again," Clark commented. It turned out that he possessed a very dry sense of humor. Some of the survivors trundled by them, continuing down the street to get medical aid.

"You know... I think Buffy is a little angry at you. You kinda stole her thunder. She's the one who usually rides in, saving everyone by the seat of her pants," Xander's one eye sort of softened. He sympathized with Buffy a little. He'd felt inferior since he was a kid, thanks to whole situation with his family. He knew what it was like to realize that you were outclassed. So far, Clark Kent was the top of the line when it comes to raw power. Buffy would have to grow up and get over the kid's abilities. She would eventually.

"Yeah... I kinda got that impression. She makes her friends by saving them from evil monsters right?" Clark looked at the old friends.

Giles nodded, Xander shrugged, and Willow giggled.

"I make my friends the same way. She's probably not used to being damsel in distress," the Kryptonian laughed, tinged with a little sadness.

"CLARK KENT! YOU HAVE SOME EXPLAINING TO DO, BUSTER!"

All four people twitched as a storm named Lois Lane began her final approach on the unassuming alien. She had been put off, ignored, lied to, and above all, she wanted answers. Real answers. Not shoddy deflections and flat out untruths. Lois wanted nothing short of a fountain of veracity. What Lois Lane wanted, Lois Lane got, damn the consequences. If she had more of an inkling about what kinda situation she was charging into... maybe she would have done things different. Maybe.

"Hello, Lois. I'm glad you brought the help I asked for," Clark drawled. It came out a little off, but Lois payed it no mind.

"You. Explain. Now," Lois growled.

"I wanted the army so that they could help with the aftermath, and I wanted you out of the city so you were safe," The alien smiled, "And there wasn't time for a full explanation. I was working under a deadline, per se."

The intrepid reporter threw her hands up in the air, and stomped on the rubble that littered the ground. She knew he was making fun of her. He had his own little private joke, almost certainly at her expense. Lois Lane would not be made fun of. Her hair-trigger temper was infamous when she'd gone through boot camp. This little coward of a farm boy simply didn't have a chance.

"Deflect all you want, but the truth will come out. Chloe knows, and I can get her to tell me. I know I can. But I'm giving you a chance to stop running away and actually face whatever the hell is going on. You don't keep secrets from friends! You just don't!"

"Lois."

"It's like you're two different people! One half of Clark Kent is a rather nice, innocent, happy-go-lucky, awkward guy. But then all these little things come up, like how the hell did you become friends with Lex Luthor, of all people? How do you seem to show up at every single weird thing that happens in a 100 mile radius? How the hell do you survive half of the stuff you do? What's the other half of Clark Kent?"

"Lois."

"What could possibly be so bad that you have to hide away from everyone you know?" Lois looked suspiciously at the farm boy, "Does Lana know?"

Clark closed his eyes, "Yes. Lana knew."

Giles took off his glasses, mumbling something vaguely insulting about Americans. Willow slammed her hand into her face. Xander just gaped at the assertive girl haranguing a creature that could kill her with a glance. Did she seriously just go there? Bringing in the dead girlfriend rarely got the answers.

"Then how could it possibly... be..." Lois Lane noticed a distinct shift in temperature. Suddenly Clark's statement hit her. Past Tense. Lois gulped a bit, "Lana knew? Why the past tense? She die or something?"

"Oh. My. God. Ms. Lane, you've just inserted your foot though your mouth and out your ass," Xander actually groaned.

"Yes, Lois, Lana is dead," There was something so final about the way he said it, almost like a piece of his soul had died the moment he found out. Lois' breath caught in her throat.

"Oh. Oh geez. I- I'm sorry. Are you okay? Oh yeah... Bad question... Uh... I'll come back later. Yeah," The intrepid reporter backed away, slowly-ish.

"No, I'll tell you now. I might as well, since you obviously won't stop until you find out. I'm an alien, as in from another planet. My planet was destroyed along with most of my people. I came in with the meteor shower in Smallville in 1989. I get this funky high from the yellow sun Earth orbits around, and quite simply I'm a superman, better, faster, smarter, stronger, tougher, all of that. I survived mostly because it's pretty much impossible to hurt me," Clark picked up a bit of piping from the piles of rubble in the area, and made a balloon dog out of it at super speed, "Are you happier now?"

Clark was gone. The metal dog sat at Lois' feet.

"Holy shit," Lois very nearly fainted.


	13. Chapter 13: In which there is an end

Chapter 13

Chloe had finally located a decent cup of java. It had taken her a few tries, but within a scant hour, even the blasted wasteland that was Main Street could produce some drinkable coffee. According to the rumors going around, there was an earthquake, followed by an exploding oil truck, that was fortunately empty. People glossed over how no-one had been within a mile of the actual ground zero.

Never mind how barely anyone had been hurt, or how even the property damage was minimal. People had a way of rationalizing it all, in the aftermath. All of that conspiracy stuff would happen once some reporter got a hold of it, and the bigger picture was revealed. She didn't envy the person who got this story, simply because there wouldn't be any answers.

"Hey Chloe."

Clark was standing behind her, looking like someone died.

"Hey Clark, what's wrong?" Chloe asked, dreading the alien's reply.

"Lana's dead."

The coffee cup hit the charred, shiny pavement. She didn't didn't even register when her hand had opened. Lana was like a sister to the blonde. She found herself and Clark in a hug. Both were crying. Chloe understood Clark as well as any mere mortal could, and she'd realized a while ago that Clark really wasn't two people. He was three.

Sure, there was Clark Kent, normal boy. Clumsy, awkward, well-meaning, sensitive, a good friend, hot, and scared very easily. Then there was Kal El, the kryptonian warrior with morals more invulnerable than he was, always dangerous, but carefully controlled. When he came out it was like watching a natural disaster, unstoppable, beautiful, and terrifying.

Finally, there was Clark. The kid in between the two poles of his personality, the two masks he wore. He rarely surfaced. Chloe wondered if he ever had a real friend. He was so scared of contact, even though he was fully in control of his effect on others. She'd thought it was like living in a world made out of glass, filled with people made of pressed flowers. Everything was fragile. If he twitched at the wrong time, in the wrong way... He could kill someone. He couldn't really pitch a fit if he got upset, because if he raised his voice, he could cause property damage and hospital stays. People wondered why Clark was startled so easily, why he was so soft spoken. If Clark messed up, there was hell to pay.

Did she really know her idol, her best friend, at all?

Did Lana know Clark before she died?

Did Clark know Clark?

That thought scared her more than anything she'd ever thought of before. Clark wore his two masks all the time. With his personal friends and complete strangers, he wore the bumpkin. With his vigilante acquaintances, he wore the capable kryptonian. Had those masks strangled her friend so much so that the real Clark had died? Chloe was more scared than ever before.

"I couldn't save her. The nuclear plant. When I saved it, I heard her last gasp, and then when I got there..." Clark was murmuring into her shoulder, "She died between the time it took for the power to completely shut off and the reserve generators to kick in."

"Clark... There was nothing you could do..." Chloe started.

"That's what hurts. I can't punch a brain aneurism in the face, tell it to change, and hope for the best. Hell, kryptonian technology couldn't do anything. I was powerless, and that hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. It's... What if I can't get close to anyone because of this? What if-"

"Clark, it's the future, no-one knows what's going to happen. Everything will work out, I promise," Chloe did her best to comfort the alien. Of course, Clark has always been powerful. He's used to it. It made sense that the sensation of weakness was his greatest fear. Ironically, that was always his greatest dream. He wanted to be normal. But he was scared of it in a way that only another superhuman could understand. He could have nothing he wanted for fear of destroying everything around him, and he couldn't give up the dream because then he'd lose himself to the power he held. The worst was that he couldn't have both a normal life and a life dedicated to protecting others, which is what he needed. He couldn't fit them into a single life.

Chloe found she pitied him, for the first time in her life.

--

Buffy watched the exchange from a distance. She didn't know what to think. She knew what it was like to lose someone who you couldn't save. Buffy lost her mother that way. The funny thing was, she knew that there simply wasn't a damn thing you could say when that happened. 'I'm sorry,' didn't cut it. 'It'll be alright,' was almost insulting. 'Cry it out,' was simply useless.

Pretty much anything you could say reeked on insincerity.

She thought about that as she walked to the cellar where Angel and Spike hid. The Slayer Prime knocked three times on the metal hatch that shielded the tunnel, warning any of the sunlight-allergic that they would want to be under cover. She opened the hatch and climbed down the rusty ladder.

Angel and Spike were playing a game of Go Fish to the light of a small fire made out of trash.

"Hey love, nice of you to drop by," Spike grimaced, looking at his hand, "Jacks?"

"Hiya Buff, Go fish," Angel rolled his eyes.

"Sonova..."

Buffy grinned when she saw her friends do something so endearing and human. Seeing Clark break down... had been enlightening. She didn't know what she knew, but something had changed in the world today.

"Eights?"

Spike started cursing in fluent spanish. He tossed an eight of diamonds over to Angel who was grinning like a madman. Buffy was always amazed how the two most dangerous vampires in the world could revert to being kids again so easily. That's why she loved them both. They bickered a lot, but they got on well with each other.

"Hey guys, how do you handle someone so far beyond you that it makes you look pathetic?" The Slayer Prime shifted her weight awkwardly.

"Oh dear. Are you referring to our extraterrestrial acquaintance who can shoot fire from his eyes?" Angel put down his cards and stood up. Buffy nodded. Her hands played with the worn edge of her leather jacket. She'd gotten it from her mother, a couple of weeks before she died. It made her feel safe, and that probably stemmed from the close bond she and her mother had shared. It was also from the ceramic scale that she'd sewn in a few years after her mother had passed and the protective spells woven into the jacket by Willow and couple other magically inclined friends. It was also very stylish.

"Well, pet, I dunno. I still haven't wrapped my head around it yet. Much as I hate to admit it, Peaches here understands him pretty well, friggin' ponce actually likes the farm boy," Spike pulled out a cigarette and lit it using the small fire.

"Spike, you like him too... you just don't like admitting when you're outclassed," Angel winked at the narcissistic vampire. William the Bloody shot a glare at Angelus the Scourge before pouting with his lip, nearly losing his precious nicotine stick in the process.

"Look, Buffy. You've always sort of been the toughest fighter around right?" Angel asked.

"Sorta. I guess."

"You've saved the world a whole bunch of times, right? So you've got to be pretty bad ass."

"I'll pretend that I buy that if you'd get to the point."

"The power that was given to you has costs right? Having a normal life, having a lot of close friends that know who you really are, deep down. Being able to show exactly who you are. That sort of stuff. All of that is compounded with Clark. He has such a ridiculous amount of power that he can only exist in the world we live in by hiding in plain sight. See, you are several cuts above the average man, but put a bullet to the brain and you still die. Clark might blink. If it was an off day. Clark could incinerate a city in a minute or two. Clark can murder an army in under two minutes, I've watched him do it. If he went rogue, the world would pretty much be fucked. He could just grab a chunk of the sun and ignite the atmosphere. That, in the eyes of the government and general public, makes him a threat. You're just bad ass, he's a sword of Damocles hanging over the head of whoever is in power right now, because in many ways he's the ultimate expression of anarchy in this world. He has to power to effectively do whatever he wants without repercussion to himself, personally, but he chooses to help people in need, and only fights if those people are threatened. Morally guided chaos, in essence.

"Humans, which are a very orderly species as a rule, find that power attractive and dangerous. So he's hidden as well as he could so they never find out why so many people who should have died, are alive. Clark hates his powers, but he needs them to save those he cares about. So, he's stuck, quite frankly, in a Catch 22 situation," Angel espoused his philosophy regarding the super-human to Buffy, who found him surprisingly like her tenth grade history teacher, pedantic and not quite all there. Most of all that talking went right over her head. However, now she had a couple of points she could at least relate with him on. Buffy knew what it was like to have your life screwed up by powers. Buffy knew what it was like to hide. Ironically, just knowing that he had similar problems made her feel better. If only because now she knew that even the unstoppable force needed help sometimes.

--

"Wow... I really put my foot in it this time, didn't I?" Lois was sitting on the curb, chain smoking as fast as she could, send huge smoke signals of her nervousness into the metropolis sky.

Willow nodded.

"I just... wanted to be let in, you know? Clark's a good guy and all, but he's so damn secretive. He holds everything so close to his chest, especially his love. He really loved Lana. I never understood why until today. Clark blames himself for existing. Like survivor's guilt, but compounded, you know? He's pretty much the last of his race. He was spared from the fate the rest of his people suffered, and now part of him thinks that things would be better if he had died with his world. Fewer people would have suffered, he thinks. Come to think of it, he never liked celebrating his birthday. He loved getting presents for people and celebrating his friend's birthdays. But I'm wandering off here.

"Lana lost her parents on the day of the meteor shower, a direct hit. Clark, being the egotistical bastard he is, blames himself for their deaths. Lana was sort of his project I bet. He'd always help her out of a jam, fix her car, do whatever he could, not only because he loved her, but because he wanted to make up for everything he believed he'd taken away. But what really bound the two together, I bet, was that Lana, once she found out, forgave him for his 'crime'. By telling him he had the right to exist, because it made her happier knowing that he was around... It's one thing, knowing intellectually that you deserve to be alive, but it's another to really believe it with your heart... I'm amazed he held himself together for so long when he found out she kicked the bucket..." Lois trailed off.

"You know, you sound a lot like Spike when he's talking about Passions," Willow matter-of-factly pointed out. She paused.

"Actually, you really are a lot like Spike."

Lois blinked.

"Willow, you are so right! If there was a Scooby chapter in Smallville, Lois would be Spike! You, madam are a genius!" Xander cheered emphatically, "Clark would totally be Angel, what with all the guilt trips, philosophy, and major hotness, I mean even I can tell that he's dripping with fangirls when he walks down the street and by God do I hate him for that, Chloe would be Willow, Uh... I'm guessing that Lana would be a kinda nicer Cordelia, Ollie would totally be Buffy, I mean look at the crossbow fetish, and that Bart kid, where the hell did he run off to anyway? He'd be me!"

--

Buffy walked up to Clark, a few hours after her conversation with Angel. She was walking back to her hotel room, and she saw Clark sitting on a curb. To be entirely honest, he looked miserable.

"Hey Clark," Buffy sat down next to the Kansas farm-boy.

"Hey Buffy," Clark looked at her, his eyes were white, even though he was crying. Salt didn't burn the blood vessels in his eyes. Hell, a bullet wouldn't even irritate his eyes. Buffy was envious of that.

"What's up? You look down. Maybe talking about it would help," Clark tried to smile.

"It's, well, you know the old 'hero must save everybody' complex. I just lost my girlfriend. I'd finally gotten things on the right track with her, and then BAM! Brainiac turns her into a vegetable. Brainiac is a sentient super-weapon. He looks a bit like Spike actually, if Spike had brown hair and was about ten years older. He fried Lana's brain with his nanotech. So now I just don't know what to do... Where do I go from here?"

"Would you change anything? Do anything differently?" Buffy was honestly curious. See, she'd never really met another genuine hero type, doing the whole thing out the kindness of their heart and because they had gifts beyond the normal. Angel was trying to hide from his past, Spike was a degenerate sot who was in love with her and tagged along, Willow didn't have the whole hero vibe going on, Xander was courageous, but fixed windows, not... well You get the idea. Everyone around her was sort of driven into the 'saving the day' lifestyle because they had no other reasonable options. They all had things they would rather do, but for various reasons never actually did those things very often.

Clark wasn't any of those things. If he wanted, he could just disappear and become someone who didn't have to save the world. Hell, he could just go to a different galaxy and live there for a while, if he felt like it.

The alien sighed, "I couldn't do anything differently. If that plant melted down, everyone would have died, including Lana. Maybe I could have killed Brainiac when I had the chance, a long time ago."

"So you wouldn't let all those people die. You would sacrifice Lana, your girlfriend, to save the lives of others."

Clark looked at Buffy, horror filled his face, and then was replaced by grief.

"Yes. I would."

"I've had to the same thing. It's never an easy choice. You had it harder and easier than I did. Back when Sunnydale was around, Angel got his soul sucked while we were dating. And he decided to destroy the world. So he opened up a portal to a hell dimension. I had to plunge the sword through his chest, but he wasn't really the man I loved, at all. I didn't have to force myself not to save him," Buffy smirked, " But the usual weirdness in Sunnydale kicked in and brought Angel back to his unlife, from a hell dimension. So don't be too sure she's going to stay dead. Death is kinda like a revolving door in our profession."

"Thank you Buffy, I appreciate the comfort, but I think that you're only seeing part of the problem. See, my existence is now sort of an open secret. Lois knows, and who knows how many people saw my fight with the guy with the claws and stuff. The Army will be getting statements. Someone will have seen something that can be used to find me. Lana was my... reason for staying secret, for hiding. Protecting those who are close to me so they aren't a target. So Clark Kent isn't a target," Clark kneaded his hands together.

"Maybe you just need a decoy."

Clark smiled at Buffy.

"Yeah, that might just work."

--

Clark dug through a chest of drawers until he found what he was looking for. A needle and thread. He smiled and walked over to a couch in the living room of the Kent farmhouse. Several bolts of fabric were littering the floor, one blue, one red, and one yellow. Clark sighed and picked up a picture of Lana and him cuddling on the couch in his barn. He lightly kissed the black haired girl's face and got to work making himself a suit to save the world in.

Time to stop hiding.

Sort of.

The rest, as they say, is history.


End file.
